City Council - Regular Meeting

Mike's on. all right we're going to get started with our work session on september 15 2026 it is just after 4 p.m first item is the university of iowa student government uh update so welcome usg

Hi, it's good to see everyone. Pretty quick announcements today. We have a senator that's working on a two good to go initiative with local businesses, which is like the app where businesses that have excess food at the end of the night, they can put it out for reduced price for people in the community to purchase. And they're basically going to waive the fees for this app so that more businesses will collaborate on the sustainability issue. Also, my applications for a deputy are now open. So I'll hopefully introduce them at the next council meetings. I'm very excited for that. I'll also be presenting at this September's Iowa City Downtown District meeting to then hopefully connect the city better with our different university initiatives. So then there'll be more city-based initiatives coming soon, hopefully. Also, USG is officially going to be filled by the end of this month through Fall NOM. So we're very excited to have everyone back in session. Thank you.

Thank you. And welcome back to all of you. All right item number 2 is clarification of agenda items. We're going to move on to information packet which is items number 3. September 3rd. September 10th.

I would like to see I believe it's IP for under pending work session topics. We have talked under the past couple of times about. Revisiting sort of spectrum of public safety discussion and it was we talked a bit about having this as part of our strategic refresh but I'm wondering given the gamut of the different strategic priorities that we have, if it makes sense to have a work topic devoted to this instead.

outside of the, well, yeah, that would make sense, yeah.

I mean, certainly we would have our strategic refresh, correct, but we have multiple components to our refresh and multiple strategic priorities. And as we have demonstrated, we have a, spectrum of things to that we can talk about concerning public safety and different approaches I would be interested in sort of getting an update I know a couple of years ago we had a really good deck that talked about Here's the spectrum of what public safety can look like. Here's where we are, what we've done. I know we've done more since that time. What more are we entertaining? How do we consider it? What role do the police have in addition to alternate? So it's really coming back to talking about what is the holistic vision and implementation of our public safety plan, if we will. And I would be interested in having that as a work topic coming forward.

Do you and this is a question for you and then a question for our city manager? I think and it would definitely be in concert with yeah in managers and staffs Ability to do you envision this happening? before the strategic refresher or after the strategic profession refresher and then the city manager question is when is this a strategic refresher and

I think that's the first question, and then the second part is that I would like to have it before the budget discussion.

Okay.

So if that helps at all. And in honesty also, I don't anticipate that this, I realize I just brought up the specter of the deck, and I don't think, I would rather have a council discussion. I would like to have a refresh on where we are with what our responses have been where we're at, but I do not anticipate that this would be a lift of staff putting forward like a 45 minute presentation. I think it really should be much more of a council discussion with us grounded in where we are at right now as well as understanding what is in front of us. I would like to know some concrete or potential concrete things that we're doing or could be doing.

Are you talking about like in general or only for safety and police discussion? About holistic public safety. Holistic public safety. And I feel like also the question would be when are we getting the data? Like do you know?

We're happy to provide whatever data would be helpful for the conversation. We're not working on any. Yeah, right now the study.

I mean, sorry, the study.

Oh, the disparity study. We're still targeting the end of the month.

Yeah. Yeah. It's still going. We know that the deadline would be the end of the month.

We're hoping to have it done by then. It should be, you know, whether it's September 30th or early October, I can't give you an exact date, but that's what we're working.

That's what they said. The university or by the end of the month.

Yes. I don't have an exact date, but sometime in the next.

But why they do not give us the exact date? Can I ask that question?

Well, because there's going, there's back and forth, just like any final consultant report. They're going to give us a draft. We're going to look at it. We might have questions, clarifications, and there's an iterative process until we say, yep, this is good. Let's go. Okay.

All right, but I thought it would be like, this date we're gonna give you the first draft, this date you're gonna review it, this date we will submit back after you give us question, we will come back to you. I thought that's what all the planning things should be like that, I don't know why this is different.

In consultant agreements, you typically try to identify those deliverable dates, but it's frequently that those are become very fluid like our comp plan right now right our comp plan was supposed to be done many months ago and we're still looking at just getting into the final phase of public input so it can be somewhat fluid but we're we're working hard to finish it up and i think the university wants to finish it up as well on the strategic refresh how quickly can we do that We just got the last of the one-on-one council meetings done yesterday, so I'm ready to get that scheduled with EC COG, who will be the facilitator. So I just need to connect with Ellen as the lead facilitator, get her availability, and then probably try to schedule that time with you all. It's likely to be a half day or more, so it's not going to be just one of these work sessions. And that'll just depend on how easily schedules align.

I was the last one, and I asked that question to Ellen direct, and she told me that it will be sometime in like mid of October. And if we find a time that all of us can do it.

Yeah. So we'll, I'll maybe try to get with the clerk's office to see if they can help with the initial scheduling while I'm out the rest of the week.

So your question is if the council is amenable to have in a public safety item on the agenda is that on the work on the work on the work session, yes, yes, of course, yes, but I would love to have the data for you.

Yes, yes.

So we'll put that on the work session pending list.

Thank you for bringing that up.

All right. How do you want me to phrase that on the pending list? Just public safety discussion?

Yeah, public safety discussion. Thank you for bringing it up. Sure.

All right, anything else? We know we'll talk about the youth commission item, so if there's nothing else, We'll move on to item number 4 with this which is the youth Commission discussion. So this was something that. I know has been on council radar from time to time or requested or discuss here and there. And so staff, we did ask to put this on the agenda. And I know that Jeff did give us a memo. So maybe I'll just ask Jeff to kind of review his memo for really public knowledge.

One second as I bring that up, please. So really the memo was to just kind of help ground the conversation a little bit. The mayor originally expressed interest in having this as a work session item and the council agreed to place it on the pending list. There has not been a whole lot of internal discussion in terms of creating this. So it's not like staff is coming to you with an idea or a recommendation on this. But in general, we outlined the history of youth councils in Iowa City and then some typical engagement strategies, again, at a very high level. So there was a formal youth advisory council here in Iowa City, a commission of the city council. That was disbanded in 2012, and just kind of reviewing that content, it looked like pretty typical struggles that cities have with youth commissions, a little disconnect between what the scope they were given from the city and then what they were really able to do. And then I think just a struggle in keeping commissioners throughout the term, kind of a constant Turnover ultimately the 2012 council decided to disband that committee and that was done after a kind of a holistic review of all boards and commissions that was done at that time. So in general, we kind of outlined a few different strategies that cities take with different youth engagement. The formal commission is one that some cities still employ, and that is a commission that you'd be familiar with, like your Parks Commission or Human Rights Commission, in which you have members of the community meet and provide you recommendations based on whatever scope of service that you provide to them. Alternatively, some cities will look at more like a civic academy, really introducing youth to local government and to community service, more of a leadership development type of opportunity that's often kind of a defined period of time, like an eight week or a 12 week program that different youth can cycle through each time that that's repeated. And then other cities will just look to be intentional about engaging youth in different parts of their operation through programming or special events. And this is kind of where we have shifted over the years. So things like the youth climate grants are noted in the memo or human rights youth awards are intentional ways to engage and acknowledge the youth of our community. You can also consider liaison appointments, much like the USG liaison, or you could look at having dedicated positions on existing boards and commissions that you think a youth voice would be helpful to have on. So that's what we outlined in the memo. We're just, you know, from staff, we'll help you with this conversation. Our interest is learning kind of more about your interest here and what's driving this conversation.

Thank you for that. At least for me, over the years, this isn't a one-time or recent conversation that's been happening, but over the years, there's been various individuals that have reached out and talked about some type of a youth committee for the City of Iowa City. I think a lot of the intent behind what they wanted to accomplish was service opportunities where the you know the youth would be able to do some community type work in the in in in our community service project in a way i think the other thing would be are there learning opportunities for the youth really from a political understanding what does it mean to be an elected official also just learning the different departments what they do, so that educational part to learn what are the services of the city to the broader community. At the end, I think many of the folks that I talked about wanted to know if there was a way to give the youth something that they would be able to show that they've went through a program with the city, whether that's a certificate, more than likely that is what it would be. But that's been the general consensus over the discussions that I've had over the years. I think the majority of youth that would want to be a part of this, I assume, would want some of the same ideas that others have expressed. But the reason I wanted to bring this to council was, one, for us to have an initial conversation on it. And the reason I said initial is because I personally believe that this should be the start of the conversation that the council should not make a determination of what this will look like in this moment, but maybe appoint one or two counselors or or I'm not sure, appoint someone to look into this further, take public input, and then bring something back to the council. So my hope is really to start the conversation, see what ideas are out there. Certainly if the council is determined to create a commission or determined to create kind of a council, or did determined to you know do something specific then yes that would be the marching orders but my thought is just for us to have a conversation to maybe determine what are the next steps in creating and bringing back information to the council for consideration.

I think some of the things about this that are interesting to me is the idea of expanding civic education for our youth as well as engagement. And with that sort of in mind when I was kind of thinking about this was wondering if a place to start before we go full on into a commission and trying to get all that set up is working with or reaching out to like the high school government programs at City and West and you know, any other schools, you know, that might, I don't know if they have something similar at like Regina or something like that. So I certainly don't want to exclude any possible schools, but to see if they're kind of maybe in terms of, you know, those are probably the students that are already taking, you know, elective classes in government. So that might be a pool and see what those teachers think. Kind of, they might have a better, maybe than me sitting up here even. The other thought was, and this is actually, all of these places have their own student councils, and to maybe to kind of gauge interest to see if there's even interest in sort of a liaison similar to what we do with USG, where if they would, you know, kind of just kind of for us to get a feel if there's really that much interest among the youth themselves right so if there were you know if that was and there would be people that want to you know it could be a rotating thing it could be once a month not every meeting it could be something like that but to kind of get them plugged in get them into the building kind of getting to meet us meet to meet some of the city staff get used to the space what it's like to be you know what a meeting looks like. As sort of maybe a dipping the toe in sort of way to kind of again sort of gauge what kind of interest there is and and also while gauging that providing some you know some real world experience helping their civic education so those are kind of my thoughts as I've been thinking about this last couple days.

Yeah, I think that this is something that I've always when it comes to I think the youth of not just Iowa City, but you know lots of communities just kind of being a You know a group of people that have their own perspectives and their own experiences that we don't have and you know, that's why we did like the youth town hall, but I so yeah i'm i'm very much in favor of it specifically like yes education teaching people how you know the municipal governments work local governments work but also enfranchisement also actually putting power in their hands um and you know from the pers in the way of actual um and an official advisory role, specifically if things come up that have a direct impact on the youth. I don't know how we would necessarily comb through what we think would be germane for them to focus on, but I guess one of the main things I'm focused on would be to, just like any other commission, we take what they have to say seriously into our decision making.

BUT I SEE THAT WHILE I WAS READING THE DOCUMENT PROVIDED BY THE CITY MANAGER THAT PREVIOUSLY THE CITY HAD ONE AND IN 2012 HAS BEEN THE USE ADVISORY COUNCIL I THINK THAT WAS THE NAME OF IT AND HAS BEEN BECAUSE THEY DID NOT ATTRACT LIKE USE. LIKE I THINK NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE WERE APPLYING OR WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?

I looked at Eric and Kelly who may have some recollection too, but my reading of the discussion at the time was kind of twofold. One, that there wasn't a clear charge from the city council. So the commission didn't really have something handed to them to say, go do this. It wasn't clear. And then I think when the youth tried sometimes, they might have ran into roadblocks. You know, being a city government, there's limitations on what we can and can't do, and that was a challenge at times. But, yes, I do think finding youth to fill the slots in the commission and getting them to stay a full term was a challenge with extracurricular activities and other commitments that youth may have.

And also like I know that you have many people like reach out to you like interesting on being dead but I don't know is it how this going to be like sustained in the future and also there is you know I know that like leaders with the goal with the goal exactly from doing this commission and the size something needed as Oliver said but what our goal is for those who students or younger. adult or young kids to just start learning about government and just have I don't I know that like many a number of the organization they have leadership academic for youth where they can go there and have like eight week training and know about the civic and everything and you know that's something also we should consider if that's the goal and and also I guess like Fred and also you're saying like commissions mean staff time. Do we really have the staff that going to dedicate their time to do this as another commission? And also I like the idea that we should have a position for use in each commission. Like only like say adding new use only like one YOU KNOW, ONE SEAT IN A COMMISSION TO BE LIKE A USE ONLY, HAVE TO BE ONLY FOR YOUTH. SO THEY CAN APPLY FOR DIFFERENT COMMISSIONS AND THIS WAY ALSO THEY WILL LEARN ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT IN THE SAME TIME, THEY WILL, WE DON'T HAVE TO HAVE ADDITIONAL STAFF TIME, WE DON'T HAVE, YES, SUGGESTION. I don't know. And also we can encourage and refer them to the, if they want to learn about civic engagement and government, how the government work, they can also attend the existing classes in the community too.

I actually like where you're going with that a lot, and my mind was going in similar directions because I'm at the end of the memo where it's like we have to define meaning and purpose, and I think we've heard three different ideas of what the meaning and purpose could be, and maybe before we even have a committee to talk about it, we should agree what is it. And I think that for you, Councilor Weiland, your instincts about having an advisory role I think that it's difficult to model it after USG because USG is one institution where they have their own elections and they're selecting amongst themselves who's representing them. It becomes a little more different when we're dealing with three or two or three high schools plus some other private school options to like how do you find the person? But we already have this commission process where there's a selection process and an application process that might weave it together. And then I think one more thing to consider is in addition to the 2012 commission that had, or was it a commission or a committee, I can't remember, the 2012 city effort, there was an effort a year ago to have a youth leadership academy through greater Iowa City, and they had lots of struggles that sound very similar to the 2012 commission. It was focused on a slightly different group of people, but it was more education focused as opposed to engagement focused. And so we have some lessons to learn from here. But again, I like where you were going, Counselor Salah, with the idea of using the existing infrastructure and hopefully commissions that have a real charge and having students, young people participate in those. Parks and Rec sounds like a really great one that I can imagine a whole lot of engagement. Now, I think that's a big discussion on us on whether that's an ex officio role and also a legal question. I don't know what the rules are about having a an actual commission member who's under 18? Do we have rules on that?

I would need to review our rules and also the state code. I suspect it's okay.

OK, but I think I think that's an interesting point, too. And we talk about voting versus non-voting members. You know, we might if we were to go down that route, we might want to give that some thought. I know, like the input of a ninth or 10th grader on a parks and rec question might have a different sort of inherent validity than on. zoning adjustment not that I wouldn't want them to be on there but you know when we start talking and maybe this even overlaps into some of the legal stuff if we're talking about a you know a a huge zoning issue where there's you know millions of dollars and jobs and everything else on the line you know that might be one of those times where we say okay well it doesn't you know we'd love to have them part of it and learn about it but it might not logically Like we might not be the might not be the play on a commission like that something with some intentionality about. I actually like the idea of and that also will help us gauge if there's that much interest to then think about. You know in the future of like an actual standalone commission. You know if it's one of these we have this and nobody shows up well. That might be a sign to.

It's going to say in and of itself. I go to practicalities I mean I think that we also have to. sort of scale it to like like duration of time like if it's not if it. The youth were to be on a commission right we're not talking about. A 2 year or 4 years that right I mean right but but as you're talking as a will. It could be interesting to think about the educational experience could be that someone is rotating at a certain point among different commissions to get a sense of what each of the different components is. There may well be a little bit of staff time or maybe it's posed to the commission. Would you be willing to spend maybe one extra thing to say, would you be willing to have an hour where you talk and walk the the student through what it's like to be on this commission what are the things that you do what do you consider what's interesting about it what's not blah blah blah and then they spend like a quarter or well since it only meets like once a month right that they spend a certain amount of time on that commission and then they rotate on to another one and maybe they're not going to get every single commission, we have a lot of them, but they could select, right? That way they could actually get some of the flavor. Their engagement would be also that they're not like, I'm forced to do this rotation, but they could select. They might be more engaged. These commissions are already there. I'm just I'm throwing stuff out here and I was going to say, well, we should have a work topic about it. And it's about 430. We can talk about it now. Right. So but it seems to me like the very thing is that we don't want to reinvent the wheel. I was going in the direction of like maybe we could hook into CLP, make them do some work. Right. Which is not fair because they're doing a ton of.

I did, to be fair, ask them about this because I'm like, is this something that's in your lane? And they're like, we have done it and didn't have a lot of, didn't have a great success with it.

I was wondering if actually the same thing where it's like you could have some of the CLP members like for a portion of this, they could have mentees, you know, sort of use the people and the things that are already set up to, to, sort of bring people in who want to. I was actually also thinking about who would be the students, and at once I appreciate the fact that those students who are taking government classes, who already have a pension for that, but how much more do we want to go to where people are? So why don't we go to the kids who are in IJAG? Why don't we go to You know, when we have, you know, our different salutations and the clubs come here, let's go to the clubs in high schools and find out whether there are takers there, right? To see if people who aren't necessarily already embedded in like, I think I want to be a poli-sci major, you know, find out. is this for them and then also if these kids can have a little bit more choice and selection just still kind of spinning processing out loud if it was that they could actually choose to embed or sit within a commission for a little bit but choose which ones which three which four for a year that they would like to do then they're a little bit more apt to actually want to continue with that, right, and to follow up. So I'm just kicking those ideas around but it seems like how can we make this meaningful and sustainable without having to say and what comes off the plate for staff. knowing full well that there is going to be some staff, commission time, counselor time. There absolutely should be. We need to have some skin in the game, I think, as well. So, just my five cents worth.

I did want to mention that I'm hearing a lot of their existing or similar organizations that could be tapped into that are that is doing something related to civic engagement i heard like there are non-profit organizations happening there are definitely talking to the government teachers at the schools to see what could be a need or appetite for the students we do have north liberty that does have a a youth Council right now we did get a late handout from some students that had proposed and this might be yours and not mine. That you know have made a proposal for youth Council. I think You know the University of Iowa also has I was in the waiting room one day and I saw that they had a youth advisory council so it seems to me that there's a lot of. Conversation surrounding there may be ways to look at some existing organizations. To see. how the city could have a leg of a wing of youth connected to the city that kind of maybe touch base on some of these I think the biggest question with going any of these avenues is answering what is the goal and I think I heard you say Councilor Moe like we kind of need to figure that out What is the goal? Because we can certainly have a council. We can have a commission. We can have ways to engage youth in these various organizations. We're a very blessed community. I say this all the time. We have a ton of resources and a ton of folks doing great work. And to Mayor Pro Tem's point, to reinvent their will, we may not want to fully do that. But I do hear or sense from various folks in the community that they do want the city to kind of have a a spot that says you related to it. Yes, we have great parks and recs we do a lot of stuff with our youth in our you know community but I and there's a lot of you know things happening and I think that is the question if we were to do something that has a youth umbrella under the city what would be the goals for that group and that could be looking at existing organizations and creating kind of like CLP you know that these are the if that's our goal is to Maybe it's big, big, big categories if it's to educate, if it's to do service projects. Because we have organizations already that look for volunteers. Like we have United Way, we have Meals on Wheels, right? We have so many organizations already. That look for volunteers and so with this be more of a we. Our goal is to. provide that opportunity for you and if they go through this program that they get something at the end because I do think that's important for you you know we do this with our commissioners we give them a certificate right thank you for your service and I think that would be very important for you to have if they go through this program or if we create something that they go through.

I mean, I will say that this email slash, honestly, memo that this, I don't know who Max Lynch is, whether he's a young man or.

Is this the late handout?

The late handout. I mean, it's impressive. And it certainly has scope and purpose. It is a lot.

It is a lot.

It is a lot, I will say.

I did see in this note that used AI to help organize some thoughts, and so now I don't know which stuff in here is his ideas.

No, no, no. Honestly, he said the framework and the information was, you know, I mean, and so that's possible, but...

It was last minute, and appreciate them sending some stuff to the council.

And also that the person was open about saying that they use this. I mean, there can be... So, at any rate, I mean... It is a lot to I think just to stand up something of this scope. I think that would be a lot and I think it's asking a lot of those who would be on this proposed thing.

But maybe there are snippets from there as well if that would be the direction can can I suggest to branches whatever is working on this there's one branch of learning what the kids actually want. I think there needs to be a lot of like, and it's probably through the schools, but also directly talking to kids. There's like one branch. And then I think most people seem to be interested in like what the existing infrastructure we have is willing to accommodate. So there's kind of talking to other commissioners maybe and commission leaders who are professional staff and then obviously the the city attorney to sort of see legality and like which would be possible and which would be a good fit and which might be a burden versus what might be actually, you know, my brain immediately went to Parks and Rec, but there could be something else that's even better, I don't know. And somebody suggested a rotation. Yeah, form base code. I don't know. It seems like, in my mind, those are the two next pieces of information if we're going to do something. Does it fit in? I don't know if there's a third piece of, is this outside of what we're already doing, like a youth leadership academy? I'm at this point not currently as excited about that just because it sounds like more school for the students and more work for someone that we have to identify and either pull off their work or give them work to do. And again, it's been tried recently, and it just didn't have the kind of engagement. So the academy thing, which is more focused on teaching kids versus the engagement of like, here's a commission, dive in the deep end, you see how it works, are two very different kinds of things. And I'm in favor of saying, here, maybe if it works, we have you be part of a commission.

odds yeah i mean i think that makes some sense um you know i think especially the part about and this is just as you know speaking now uh you know as a parent to the our grown-up ideas of what kids are interested in aren't always the same thing that kids are interested in oh sure and so you know there could be all kinds of good intentions like you know uh you know and and again having you know the the experience of raising kids has definitely taught me that and so um reaching out to some of like if we wanted to move forward on this like and that's why that's why i come with like you know the high school like government teachers would be a good resource um these students senates or whatever they call them in their student council student senate i don't know if every school calls it the same thing but you know those are those again are the kids that are more likely but those are also the kids that are in 20 different activities like sports music theater i mean their student government so it's kind of one of those both the aptitude or the better fit. And then, you know, then we end up with, again, it's not just about dedicating staff time and pulling them off of stuff, but then to do that and then have a very low or very short term, which is why I think the integration into existing actually that actually I think the more I think about that, the more that seems to be to have some real logical pluses to it.

One other idea that just came to mind, because actually where I work just got done doing this for a year, was we had a student advisory commission. And it was different students were brought, and it was all virtual. But it was focus groups. It was essentially, it was a town hall, but it was focused to specific topics. And it was to gather insights and input. What do you think about this? Now, again, not every topic may be all that interesting to students, but you don't know that, right? And maybe there's a possibility of a regular cadence where it is a student town hall, And maybe it makes more sense to have it be that there's several topics within one discussion so that there's no one session drops to the bottom of the sea like a stone if it's not happening, and there's something for everybody in it, but that there's a, in the same way that we do listening posts, maybe it's through the inverse, where it's a call out to students to say, are you interested, and it's to a number of different, whether it's youth groups, and to the high schools to say, we really want to get student input. And it is, it's actually saying we're doing kind of focus groups. We want your thoughts about what's going on in the city, right? And to do it in face-to-face, it would have perhaps some staff, it would certainly have electeds there. Not in this overwhelming sense. I mean, we could work through details, but maybe that's another path of how students could be engaged, reach out again to government teachers to be like, what are the types of things that you're hearing from students that they're concerned about, pissed about, whatever? What would be good ways to engage with them, what have you? How do we get the word out? and then try to get some insights and input. And again, we'd have to be really clear and have the conversation among all of us to say, you know, to be clear to the students about why we're doing this. It's not just, you know, in those things that maybe we can act on, insights that you have, we can try to take those nuggets and do something with, but you know, this isn't necessarily like everything that you say we're gonna do. It's like just being clear and transparent with them, but to say, we really do wanna hear what you have to say and what you think is working, what isn't working, what you'd like to see. I don't know, maybe that's another way in which we could get students and youth to feel like they are being heard, they are engaging and that their insights. It's a slightly different tack than what we've been talking about but that might also be some kind of a way. And to do it through different topics that maybe are, put out there as far as what does it mean for parks and rec? What do you think about having great big tall buildings versus widespread single family? I don't know. Transportation, bikes, et cetera, et cetera.

I was thinking about how there's two very different paths in terms of trying to get feedback that informs our policy decision-making versus providing information to students where they're more like the civic education or even a leadership academy kind of thing. i really like the idea of using existing infrastructure right i don't i'm not entirely sure if boards and commissions are the place you know just kind of thinking out loud as we're all doing but um and maybe that's just because i'm you know thinking about how one meeting doesn't really, you know, or a couple of meetings can be really overwhelming. We have commissioners who say, you know, they've been on for a year and then they finally start to get to understand it kind of thing. But I, you know, This would be a bigger lift for staff certainly, but I could imagine a series of town hall type events where there's actually an educational component, you know, a half hour presentation about something that scopes, you know, so that we're within the realm of what the city actually does and then the portion of the time is really like, okay, so give us, now that you've heard a little bit about this, let's talk about what matters to you, how you would like to see things work and get that input on the subject matter.

Yeah, I think that's what put us back with the goal of this. And yeah, so we can know exactly what we want those students or those youth to learn or to accomplish. As you said, maybe put them in a commission is not the right thing or maybe that's not the thing that they want to do. But I think we have to just take a step back and maybe figure out what the goal, what they want to learn. Especially we can meet like with the people who came to you, Mayor, and they are interested. Okay, what do you exactly want to achieve? So like was that a commission or Council or whatever it is and after that we can I think come out with something and see.

So if I was to kind of gather all the thoughts that are overlapping, my thought is, or what I'm hearing is really engage the youth and learn from them what they want. Look at existing infrastructures, government teachers, youth organization, nonprofits that have civic engagement trainings. we can potentially look at some of our own boards and commissions just to you know get some of their thoughts and input and then the real hope is to figure out what is the you know what is the goal what is the hope that the youth essentially want to accomplish And what avenues would that kind of be, you know, expressed through so that feedback versus providing information, try to figure out what that looks like. If people are thinking that this is kind of, it really is exploratory at this point where we reach out for input. then I would suggest that maybe I see 2 things I see well I see there needed to be some Avenue for reaching out. I don't know if it's accounting. You know 2 counselors to navigate this. And you know maybe there's various ways reaching out to these people maybe there's a a way to have just an open house on the topic. But I also see while exploring that we would have a staff and I know that a staff presence as well through this exploratory phase of this. So just want to get people thoughts on next steps, what you all think is the right next step.

I think, you know, if we're going to just kind of like generally young people within this high school age range, and we're just saying, we want youth to be involved. What do you think? I think we need to come with examples. When I was researching this, a lot of the things that came up from various communities was an advisory role. And that seemed to be the most stable thing in the communities, like an official commissioner advisory role. And a lot of it was quoted as being like, well, you're giving someone an official like just like anybody else you know giving them agency and autonomy to not only pursue the things that they want but to be able to advise on issues that they want to advise on or we specifically ask for their advice on instead of just creating a program that's like rolling out a TV and playing the, I'm just a bill on Capitol Hill, you know? But more like these are, you know, it's not just about developing the person, which is, this would be huge for that, but it's also about recognizing them as people who already have experiences that are unique and a perspective that is unique and we should hear them. Which is why I think when we go asking for what do you want, we could give options about the various types of forms we were talking about instead of just kind of like, all right kiddos, what do you wanna do?

No, I mean, it's always helpful to give them something to grab onto because, I mean, what's been so cool about this discussion is that we sort of started off with, okay, we've got this memo to react to and then we've been able to generate additional ideas from that. I imagine that that would be the type of thing that, again, go to students or youth and be able to do something similar and we might be able to come out of this with even more, so.

And I know, I don't know, Jeff, if you had any, because in the memo you were talking about how you would need to pull staff off something else to do something like this. So I guess I don't even know what that would be or how to make that decision if we don't know potentially what could be foregone to do this from staff's perspective.

Yeah, I don't know that you have to make that decision. We can make that decision on what gets deprioritized. Now, if it's a long-term commitment, then maybe we'll want some input. But if you're looking for someone to help you through the exploratory phase, we can provide some staff help and just have to understand that we don't have staff sitting around looking for something to do, right? That's just not a thing. So something will get dropped off. You may or may not ever know what that impact is, but somebody will.

I would just say that, boy, microphone problems every time, that I would be willing to assist with that exploratory phase. I did have some involvement with the Youth Advisory Commission in the last iteration. I believe the staff liaison was Marion Carr, and I'm aware that she spent quite a bit of time with that group, and I helped them work through a number of challenges having to do with governmental bodies open meetings fitting within the structure of city government budget procurement a number of things like that.

So I guess is the council amendable to heaven to appointees in from council and then one staff at this point. Okay. All right. Are there any volunteers, I guess, that want to do this? I don't mind being a volunteer, but I don't have to be a volunteer just because I, you know, requested to put this on the agenda.

I was kind of hoping, since it sounds like you've already done some legwork. I would be happy to be a part. At least one. Sounds good.

I'm good.

All right sounds good.

We'll go with that and we'll be back to the council at some point.

Thank you.

All right anything else on youth Commission before we in that discussion. We're going to move on to item number 5 which is Council updates on the sign boards commissions and committees. We will be back at 6 PM for a formal meeting we are done with our work session.

Yeah, so.

all right i'm going to call the city of iowa city meeting to order roll call please alter here fergus here harmsen here mo here select yeah teague here y line here all right i want to welcome everyone in council chambers to your city hall and to those joining us virtually welcome as well we're going to get started with item number two which is proclamations 2a is constitution week and is read by councillor harmsen

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Whereas September 17th, 2026 marks the 239th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention, and whereas it is fitting and proper to officially recognize this magnificent document in the anniversary of its creation, and whereas Public Law 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the President of the United States of America designating September 17th through the 23rd as Constitution Week and whereas the Constitution has been amended from time to time to define basic rights to extend those rights to all persons and to modify other specific aspects in light of contemporary concerns and whereas it is fitting and proper to officially recognize the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate the occasion Now, therefore, I, Sean Harmsen, on behalf of Bruce Teague, Mayor of the Iowa City, Iowa, do hereby proclaim the week of September 17th through the 23rd, 2026 to be Constitution Week in Iowa City and reaffirm the ideals of the framers of the Constitution that they had in 1787 by protecting the freedoms guaranteed to us through this guardian of our liberties. And accepting will be Sherilyn Evans and Ann Suter.

Welcome.

The Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890. Our pilgrim chapter here in Iowa City has celebrated more than 110 years of service to this community. The DAR works to honor the memory of the patriots who fought for American independence. It also seeks to maintain and protect historical sites and artifacts related to the Revolutionary War area. era. The organization is involved in various community service projects, educational programs, scholarships, and initiatives to support veterans. On September 17, 1787, 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed our U.S. Constitution. The Daughters of the American Revolution instituted the celebration of Constitution Week in 1955. And in 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower officially declared September 17th to the 23rd as Constitution Week. We encourage all citizens everywhere to take time during this week to appreciate the principles of freedom, equality, and justice for which our forefathers strived. The DAR are very appreciative of this Constitution Week proclamation. Thank you so much, Mayor Teague.

2B is food waste prevention week and this will be read by Councilor Burgess.

Whereas according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources 2022 Iowa statewide material characterization study, approximately 20% of materials disposed of in the Iowa City landfill are food waste items. And whereas landfilled food waste produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And whereas food waste reduction ensures the water energy and land resources required to produce food are not wasted and whereas efforts to save quality food from being wasted support local food systems to feed community members in need and whereas the city of iowa city promotes environmental sustainability through reducing food waste at the source now therefore i on behalf of bruce teague mayor of iowa city iowa hereby proclaim the week of September 28th through October 4th, 2026 as Food Waste Prevention Week in Iowa City and urge our community members to recognize the importance of reducing food waste to strengthen our Iowa City community and to reduce climate impacts. And receiving this proclamation tonight is Jane Wilch, our recycling coordinator.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'm Jane Welch, the city's recycling coordinator. And thank you very much to the city council and Mayor Teague for this proclamation to celebrate food waste prevention week in our community. Food waste makes up about 20% of what enters our landfill, and this equates to more than 25,000 tons of food. Composting is part of the solution to reduce landfill food waste and we are very excited and grateful for our compost facility expansion, which is made possible by generous funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Construction is happening right now. Once construction is completed this fall, our next step is increasing access to composting in our community. While composting is an important part of reducing food waste entering our landfill, reduction is the first priority, which focuses on preventing food waste from being formed in the first place. Through a partnership with Table to Table, our local food rescue organization, our Love Food Fight Waste program launched in April 2022 to offer our community members approachable ways to reduce food waste, take climate action, and save money. We greatly appreciate the proclamation to recognize the importance of food waste reduction and prevention. Thank you, Mayor Teague and City Council.

Thank you. 2C is Hispanic Heritage Month. Whereas Hispanic Heritage Month is a month-long celebration of Hispanic and Latino history and culture and is important because it provides an opportunity to celebrate the integral part of the Hispanic Latino community has had in our growing and strengthening our democracy. And whereas Hispanic Heritage Month provides an additional opportunity to explore the incredible impact Latinas and Latinos have had on the United States. of United States, Iowa, and Iowa City for generations. Whereas the month-long celebration provides more time to properly recognize the significant contributions Hispanic Latino Americans have made in the United States. And whereas Hispanic Heritage Month does not cover one single month, but instead begins in the middle of September and ends in the middle of October. The timeframe of this month is significant because many Central American countries celebrate their independent days within these dates. And whereas we will continue to advocate for Hispanics, Latinos, as representation matters, Latinos and Latinas continue to shape our nation as business owners, activists, artists, public servants, and more. From serving in the U.S. military to being champions in the fight for civil rights, Latinas and Latinos remain strong leaders and change makers. Now, therefore, I, Bruce Teague, Mayor of Iowa City, do hereby proclaim September 15th through October 15th, 2026 as Hispanic Heritage Month. and encourage residents to inspire equity, create alliances, celebrate diversity, and join in the 2026 Latino Fest that will take place on September 19th at the Penn Mall in downtown Iowa City from noon until 9 p.m. And except in this, we have a few people, Edwin, Eloy, and Janet.

Good evening. My name is and I am the founder and organizer of Sunset Salsa, an independent initiative that has created free opportunities for music, dancing, and community connection here in Iowa City. For me, it's a privilege to receive this proclamation on behalf of the Iowa City Latino community. I accept it in recognition of the families, artists, business owners, community leaders, and many others whose contributions have strengthened and enriched this beautiful city we have. I sincerely thank the City of Iowa City for recognizing our culture, our history, and the people who work to keep them visible, accessible, and welcoming to everyone. It's an honor to join you guys this evening and to represent our community.

Good evening. Buenas noches, everybody. My name is Eloy Barragan. I'm from Mexico City. I'm a professor of dance at the University of Iowa. I arrived here in 2005, 21 years ago, with my wife thinking that we will use only Iowa City just for one year or two years and keep moving on. We come from the University of California, Irvine. But the welcomeness, the diversity that has changed from 21 years ago to now, it really changed our heart and say, like, this is a good place to make a family and be safe. And I just want to thank you, thank you all of you to welcome this, our community as Latinos, Mexicans, but also it's important for me to know as an artist, I second what my colleague just mentioned, to support the arts, to support the writing, to support dance, music, to fulfill our soul. With that, we can face the difficulties in these moments, in these times. The climate in this country is not easy. I recognize that. But I'm very grateful to be living in this beautiful city. And I thank you all. And we accept this proclamation. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Manny Galvez. I just want to be very short. As you mentioned, it was mentioned in the proclamation, this is the 50 years of the Latino Fest. I want to just take this opportunity to say thank you to every person in the government, but the most important, thank you to the community, thank you to everybody in residence in Iowa and Johnson County, because all the support like we received, just as 15 years, but since we arrived to Iowa 100 years ago, we are so happy that we are here. And I think the most important, as we say this year, 15 years of dreams. We want to keep dreaming together with everybody in the city, with everybody in the county and Iowa. And again, I think we want actions every day so that dreams come true. Thank you so much. And I hope I see you everybody Saturday.

All right, thank you. 2D is a recovery month, and this will be read by Mayor Pro Tem Alter.

Whereas behavioral health is an essential part of overall health, and substance use and mental health conditions affect individuals, families, and communities nationwide. And whereas National Recovery Month is observed every September to celebrate individuals in long-term recovery, honor the dedication of families and service providers, reduce the stigma surrounding mental health conditions and substance use disorders. And whereas the impact is apparent across Iowa and in our local community with about one in five adults in Iowa living with some form of mental illness, 22.2% of adult Iowans reporting binge drinking, and 431 Johnson County residents receiving substance use treatment in FY 2025. And whereas, Recovery Month observance can help people become more aware and able to recognize the signs of mental health and substance use disorders and connect people with effective and welcoming local services and resources where people are met with dignity and understanding. And whereas our community is fortunate to offer robust local prevention, treatment, and recovery resources from many organizations and programs, along with community coalition collaborations, Johnson County Prevention Partnership and Public Health and Safety Team, FAST, comprised of healthcare and treatment providers, attorneys, medical examiners, office, probation, parole, first responders, elected officials, crisis teams, community-based organizations, nonprofits, and community members, and free naloxone, the life-saving opioid overdose medication, and vending machines and other locations listed at jocorecovery.org. And whereas, for the above reasons, I am asking all residents, local businesses, healthcare providers, and community organizations to honor this month by supporting those on the path to healing by sharing resource information from Your Life Iowa, offering support 24-7, and jocorecovery.org, listing available Johnson County resources and events supporting this year's observance. Now therefore, I, Megan Alter, on behalf of Bruce Teague, Mayor of Iowa City, do hereby proclaim September 2026 to be Recovery Month in Iowa City, Iowa. And accepting this is Susan Violeta with Johnson County Prevention Partnership, as well as Kate Winterink.

Welcome.

Hi, everyone. Great to see you. Two things. First of all, sometimes when things go on behind the scenes, these groups that you talk about and all these resources, we know about them, but we don't necessarily know how they're all working together. And let's face it, sometimes we don't all work together as best as we could, right? There's a couple of organizations, or I'm sorry, a couple of teams coming together to work on substance use disorder. And it's not just organizations. It's a lot of people that really care about this issue. Some of those folks here today represent community family resources. They represent Unity Point Abbey. We've got University of Iowa Addiction Recovery Collaborative, UIARC as it's known. There's Thrive in the community, Thrive Now. There's a lot out there. If folks are looking for assistance, it's there, hopefully, right? Or talk to us. If not, let us know about those gaps that you see. And last, I just want to say recovery is possible. A lot of people think people don't recover from substance use disorder. And I bet a lot of us, myself included, have folks that haven't. But people do recover.

Thanks. Thank you.

Thank you. Hey, everyone. My name is Kate Winterink. I've been proud to call Iowa City home since July 30, 2024. I wanted to, the main reason why I wanted to get up here and speak is I wanted to, you know, speak on, you know, getting my story out and having y'all hear it from someone who's been there and who's done that. I have struggled with alcohol misuse in the past, had my own mental health struggles as well. I live with complex PTSD, anxiety, depression, and I've been three, as of the 26th of this month, I'll be three years sober. from alcohol so i'm pretty excited about that i don't know how i made it that far but hey i'm there in regards to you know One thing I want to say about recovery is like I feel like one thing that is absolutely paramount and that I think we need as a society, not like every single person, but like there's still a handful of people we got to get going on reducing this stigma. Like one thing that I think a lot of people realize when they get so caught up in the stigma surrounding mental health and substance use is the person that is struggling with addiction or struggling with mental health, they got a secondary battle that the people judging them have no idea about. So I think it's important, instead of judgment, Instead of approaching these types of situations with judgment, approach it with empathy. Because if people are being able to open about what's going on, what's causing them to misuse, what's causing them to feel stressed or depressed or anxious, we'll be able to get on the right steps to help them. So that's one thing I wanted to add. I'm a big stickler when it comes to crushing the stigma surrounding mental health. And it might not be something, it's gonna be something I refuse to stop talking about until I see significant improvement. Thanks everyone.

to eat is a welcoming week read by a counselor Sala.

Well as I was city success depend on ensuring over 30 them feeling will come through our community. Today I was hit to recognize our over 10,000 foreign born residents as in this in this principle to our communities characters. new residents are vital part of our city social and economic culture bringing fresh perspective and new ideas is starting businesses and contributing to the the verb and the diversity that we all value and whereas this week we celebrate the spirit of unity that is bringing neighbor together across Iowa City. During Welcome Week, I invite all Iowa City residents to join the movement of communities nationwide by acting in the spirit of welcoming. By working together, we can achieve greater prosperity and make our community the kind of place where diverse people from around the world feel valued and wanted to put down roots. Regardless of where we are born or what we look like, we are all Iowa City resident. We aspire to live up to our highest social values of acceptance, equality, and equity, and treated newcomer with compassion and respect, creating a vibrant community for all to live in. And we ask, let us come together to create more prosperous community and to reaffirm that Iowa City continue to stand as a beacon of freedom and opportunity. Let us come together to create an inclusive, supportive community where residents of all origins can live, work, and play. Therefore, I'm Zohar Saleh on behalf of Bruce Teague, Mayor of Iowa City, hereby proclaim September 10 to September 19, 2026 at the Welcome Week in Iowa City, Iowa. And here to accept is Tom Martinez from Greater Iowa City.

Welcome.

Thank you very much. Yes, my name is Tom Martinez. I'm a program manager with Greater Iowa City covering community and workforce development. I feel very honored to be joining the ranks of so many very valuable and good proclamations this evening. Welcoming Week is a national initiative and we join thousands of different communities across the country in this effort. I just want to thank, we have so many different organizations who are participating, but I want to specifically thank some of our public partners, specifically to Shaylin Harrington with City of Iowa City, Abby Cobb with the City of North Liberty, Allen Hampe Alexander with the Coral Public Library, and Paola Jaramillo-Huayra with Johnson County. All events can be seen on the WelcomeICarea.com or Greater Iowa City's websites under the events page when you type in welcoming. Thank you again and have a good night. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Katie Roche and I am here on behalf of the Iowa City Public Library and the Iowa City Public Library Friends Foundation. And I want to share how deeply our institution values Welcoming Week and the spirit behind it. The library is at its heart a community space where everyone belongs no matter where they come from or what language they speak, enriching our community as our neighbors with their stories, culture, heritage and friendship. We are now a year out from expanding our World Languages Collection which offers books in Arabic, Chinese, French, Korean, Spanish, Swahili, and Vietnamese. This collection is shaped not only by what's most useful for our community but also by partnerships with readers and speakers of those languages, immigrants, families, and writers from the University of Iowa's International Writing Program who have generously donated their own works to enhance our collection. Through their support, the Iowa City Friends Foundation, our donors, and the support of our municipality, we're able to keep growing these collections and programs so the library continues to reflect the people we serve. It's one way we live out the message of Welcoming Week every day, not just this week, but year-round. And just this last Saturday, the Iowa City Public Library welcomed members of our community to participate in a Welcome Week event complete with complimentary donuts, coffee, and juice. where the public were invited to share their words for a public display prompted by the words, what makes you feel like you belong? What makes you feel, how do you welcome someone? Answers range from Midwestern mom casseroles, hugs and ice cream to smiles, neighborhood picnics, and invites to show a new community member around our beautiful welcoming community. You can see that upcoming display very soon at the library. We're proud to stand alongside our community partners in celebrating Welcoming Week and we invite everyone to come to the library, explore our world languages collection, come to a story time in English, French or Spanish for children and discover the many ways libraries help people feel at home. Thank you.

we have more people from the welcome week committees yes welcome shouldn't it be a party good evening i'm the community engagement and policy coordinator for the johnson county board of supervisors office um as exciting as it is to highlight welcoming week and be incredible i believe we're up to 21 events that are official core events this week that we would love to see you at as it closes out not just on saturday but african fest on uh september 26th if i remember my dates I do also want to bring to recognition that all of Johnson County is the first place in Iowa, in the state of Iowa, that is a designated welcoming community. And so Tom Martinez highlighted the core committee, which is wonderful, but the City of Iowa City, City of North Liberty, City of Coralville, and lots of our smaller rural areas also participated in a year-long process to be audited to make sure that systems are being built to make sure that we are welcoming to community members from near and far. And so also want to highlight that and appreciate the work that your staff does each and every day to make sure that those systems exist and how exciting it is to be the only place in Iowa that is designated welcoming. So thank you to the work that you all do.

Thank you. And thanks to everyone that came for the proclamations. All right, we're gonna transition over to our consent agenda, which is items three through eight. Could I get a motion, please? So moved, Mo.

Second, Saleh.

Moved by Mo, seconded by Saleh. And anyone from the public like to address this topic, if you are online and would like to address anything on our consent agenda, please raise your virtual hand. If you're in council chambers and want to address something on our consent agenda, I invite you to come forth at this time. Seeing no one online or in person, Council discussion. Roll call please.

Mo?

Yes.

Sala? Yes. Teague?

Yes.

Weiline? Yes. Alter? Yes. Burgess? Yes. Harmsen?

Yes. Motion passes seven to zero. We're on to item number nine, which is community comment. This is an opportunity for folks to come up to speak on any item that is not on the council agenda. I wanted to see if there's any hands that want to speak on this item, on community comment. seeing no one all right we're going to move on with our uh agenda we're going to go to 10 which is planning and zoning matters 10 a rezoning 2041 north dubuque street north dubuque road ordinance conditionally rezoned in approximately 17.8 acres of land located at 21 2041 North Dubuque Road from mixed use zone to low density multi-family residential zone with a planned development overlay. I'm gonna open up the public hearing and welcome Danielle.

Good evening, Mayor. Danielle Sitzman, Neighborhood and Development Services. As you read this evening, this is a rezoning for the area in the dashed outline. It's comprised of three parcels that were previously part of the ACT campus or near it and owned by JNB. They were recently purchased by Oak Knoll. They will be planted into one single lot eventually and before development at that time. The purpose of this rezoning is a request by Oak Knoll Retirement to rezone it from the previously zoned mixed use designation to a low density multifamily designation for the development of housing. This would be a spectrum of care typical to what Oak Knoll typically does. It would include approximately 83 independent multifamily units, 37 assisted multifamily units, as well as 14 skilled nursing care units. The request is to better align the zoning with that proposed use. This shows the surrounding zoning, showing the previous rezoning to purple for much of the campus. Again, this is the area dashed in white there. As I said, it's going from a mixed use zone, which was applied to much of the campus, to a more specific RM12 low density single family with an OPD overlay on it. That's for plan development because of the presence of sensitive areas. So they've submitted a development overlay plan as well as a preliminary sensitive areas plan. inventorying those sensitive areas. The density in this development is therefore much less than it could be because they're avoiding slopes and woodlands. There are impacts to wetlands, however, and we'll talk about those a little bit as we go on. So again, previously three parcels sold to Oak Knoll to be made into a single lot for development. They are requesting one waiver as part of their planned overlay, and that is for an additional 10 feet of height. Typically the maximum height would be 35 feet. They're requesting that height be increased to 45 feet. They do have topography on the site, so the way we calculate heights is based on averaging, so because they have a lot of slope, it probably won't be perceived as 45 feet in every area, but it does average out to being greater than what the average would normally be allowed to be. Because this is an OPD, there are multiple criteria that are reviewed in addition to the standard ones, just typical rezonings. So we'll go through those. The typical rezoning standards are for consistency of the comprehensive plan and compatibility with the neighborhood. This is consistent with the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan did not anticipate redevelopment in this area, so there's no specific planning language for the northwest district, but certainly there are goals and strategies addressing infill and compact efficient development and supporting infill and diversity of housing types. As far as compatibility with the existing neighborhood, due to the existing mix of land uses surrounding this, this is proposed to be compatible. It's housing where there is other types of housing are appropriate to be housing along a major street. It's also buffered from a lot of other less intense uses by the road network and just the larger distances inherent in this campus. There's also offices, future commercial, a fire station, and other mixes in this general area of town. So getting into the specific criteria for an overlay, we look at density and design. This is well below the allowed density for this amount of land. But it could support much more units. But as I said, they're sensitive features, and so those are being largely respected with the provision of the approximately 119 units. And we also look at mass and scale. This would be one building with multiple stories, three stories. Parking is largely going to be behind the building and out of sight from the road network and the public realm. There are also extensive pedestrian connections planned between the existing Oak Knoll development nearby. Open space would be provided privately on site as required for multifamily housing. And we've looked at the traffic circulation impacts in the neighborhood, in addition to vehicles with, like I said, those pedestrian paths for residents to both circulate on the sidewalk system around the site and between the two sites. We did look at the... public utilities in the vicinity. Final construction plans for those public streets and infrastructure are being reviewed as part of the planning process for the Kestrel Hill subdivision, so not necessarily with this lot. But we have evaluated the stormwater, sanitary sewer and water needs, and also proposed conditions related to this rezoning for their construction. As far as whether this development would have adverse effects beyond what a regular non-OPD development would have, we don't find that there would be any expected impacts beyond conventional development anyway. These land uses are in the public interest. There are certainly additional housing units. They're being provided as senior housing units so they'd be age-restricted. Again, that would be in the public interest to diversify the housing stock both in this neighborhood and throughout the city. As I said, a large portion of this property is also remaining open, and there are extensive setbacks, really, so the mass and scale of this development is largely buffered on its own site. Regarding the environmentally sensitive areas that I mentioned, they are well below the impacts to slopes that would be allowed only impacting 5% when they could go up to 35. The woodland retention is double, more than double what's required. However, there are impacts to a wetland that are being proposed. However, they would be in compliance with the city's ordinance as well. They plan to mitigate those impacts offsite at a one-to-one ratio. Unfortunately, the wetlands onsite have extensive invasive species in them. So to restore them would be largely to disrupt them anyway. So rather than do that, the stream corridor will be improved. However, the wetland itself will be mitigated offsite. So, the erosion and the stream bank stabilization will occur on-site, but the applicant will also then make contribution to an off-site. So, again, as I said, there's a long history in this area of rezonings. This is the one highlighted in blue. I expect we'll probably see a few more rezonings site by site for this large campus as it goes along. But for the time being, this is just one site for one development. So based on a review of the relevant criteria, staff recommended approval with four conditions. Some of those conditions were carried forward from the previous rezonings. Some of them have to do with a compensatory mitigation for the wetland, ensuring that it's done at a one-to-one ratio through the purchase of credits with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And I believe there's not too much more to summarize there. It's pretty much the same conditions as were stated in the previous rezonings. So after September 2nd meeting by a vote of six to zero, the Planning and Zoning Commission concurred with staff's opinion and also recommended approval. And we have received the signed CZA. Tonight we do have in the audience the developer and their engineer. So if you have any questions, they're here to answer those as well.

Great. Any questions for Danielle?

Dan, when you said that the stormwater management is mitigated offsite, is that the purchase from the U.S. Carburetor Engineers for wetland alternative locations?

Yeah, it's not the stormwater, it's the sensitive areas.

Sensitive areas, okay, I'm complaining. Sorry, I misspoke. No, no, that's okay.

separate those out for me storm water is we would consider that infrastructure so the storm water is part of the overall subdivision so they'll do either on-site storm water management for their the site on the site or they'll have a regional system they have to have that all before they get to building permits so i don't know the exact design maybe they can answer that for you the sensitive area about the wetland is more about the just the wetland and so that's something that they've addressed in their sensitive areas analysis. They did study the wetland to see what could be improved, could be stabilized, but the preponderance of it was filled with invasives and so it was really going to be pretty destructive either way.

Understood. Thank you.

Is this the moment to ask about signalization studies or is that a different part of the process?

That would be better. I'm not even sure if I could tell you which point. Hit me with your question. Let's see what it is.

So my question is just given the fact now that, because I know at one time there was a signalization discussion when scooters was going in and whatnot. But given the fact now that the ACT building will retain office space and it actually will be filled, that ICCSD and that there is this development, albeit for an older demographic, I'm just wondering if that changes the dynamics at all and if there is a need for a signalization study, just given the fact that that is kind of a tight location will with traffic coming off from South Dodge and from Scott and then with now Dubuque Road actually probably seeing a bit more traffic in and out so I was just wondering if that was a great question if this would be something where it would be revisited.

You know, so when the rezoning for the campus first came through several actions ago, rezoning is the point at which we have the best tool for assigning a condition. We did look at the traffic at that point and we had traffic studies and we have the city did review the flow of the traffic both on north dodge through the corridor on scott to the north of buke road all of those impacts were studied this rezoning is being tied to just this one development did not rise to the level of revisiting that knowing that the inside of the circle of act campus had been planned for housing at the time of that study and now it's been being used probably for office instead. You know, those impacts probably hit slightly different times of day, but the number of people is not all that different. I think at this point, this rezoning would not be appropriate for that, and I think the city has taken on the position that we did everything we needed to do at the previous one. If signals need to be retimed at this point, it would be on us, so. I don't know if that's a clear answer. This rezoning is probably not the point at which to place a condition.

Would there be a point or would this be something that would go through MPO if at a future point there was enough like, wow, there's quite a bit of busyness going on here, that that would be something that would be addressed through MPO perhaps?

Well, the city's CIP projects. The engineering staff would be monitoring the traffic flows, and every year there's some signal, tinkering that happens with signalization is just timing. So we have a consultant that checks out once a year. If it gets beyond that scope of that project, then we take it on as a CIP project to make improvements.

Okay. I was even thinking to the extent of would there need to be some kind of signal actually at that juncture where there's Dubuque Road with Captain Brave or whatever they're called.

That was discussed. That was certainly discussed. Those intersections are very close together and so to increase capacity you're adding lanes and there's a lot of impacts there. So with scooters I think you might even recall I'm not sure if we discussed islands publicly at that point, but it certainly was all on the table with staff when we reviewed those applications. Good question.

Daniel, the last condition about the roadway, I'm just having a hard time understanding where exactly. So the improvements to North Dubuque Road between North Scott Boulevard and where?

So all of the roads on the ACT campus are private. So this is a carryover condition to ensure that those private roads are brought up to public standards before they start being used by the public. So there's a little bit of section that's in this vicinity. And so this is addressing making sure that happens with this project or before this project. The rest of the road network is also something that needs to be studied and made sure.

And that will be kind of happen as it develops. Thank you.

All right, thanks. I'm wondering if any of the developers want to make any comments at this time. Welcome.

Welcome. Good evening. I'm Mark Siebold. I'm a principal architect with Shive Hattery here in Iowa City. I've been working with Danielle and staff and with Oak Knoll for the past, boy, year on this development and just working on the different rezonings and things like that. And frankly, all the rezonings and redevelopment that's happening on the corner there of intersection of I-80 and Dodge Street. So thank you for all your past support on that. I guess I'm just here to answer any further questions if you have any further questions from the design team. There is an additional traffic light going on ACT Drive also. So that'll help traffic coming in and out of this development. I believe that was on this year's schedule, but I think it's been pushed to next year for that final installation. So just from a traffic standpoint.

I did see that almost half of the woodland or 47% of the woodland was going to be preserved. I'm guessing that's sort of where that ravine is. Yeah. That kind of comes from the other side of Scott.

Yes, I mean this rezoning really is identical to what we did with Oak Knoll East, you know, the first time around on that phase one where we kind of found that sweet spot where it was cleared and then it drops off to the ravine. So very similar in that we're embracing those views, embracing those woodlands and then using the, you know, the cleared area to provide more resident amenities and more outdoor amenities space. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anyone from the public like to discuss this topic? If so, please come forth. And if you're online, please raise your virtual hand. And there is a sign in up here all police yep and there's a sign in up here you can just drop it in that basket.

I think they will ask you to state your name the city or from you'll be given up to 3 minutes what my name is Eldon Snyder and I live on Oaks drive in Iowa City, which is north of of. I'll frequently walk to the intersection. of Dodge Street to North Dubuque Road. And I see a lot of potential accidents. I see a lot of mishaps. I see a lot of road raids there as people try to merge into. from two lanes into one coming from different directions and i'm concerned about the impact that this development which i think is fine but i'm concerned about how it's going to impact the traffic light especially on dodge street and scott ballard thank you thank you anyone else like to address this topic welcome

Please state your name and city you're from.

Evening, everyone. I'm Nick Katz. I'm from Iowa City on behalf of Shive Hattery. I'm the civil engineer for the project. And also, Shive Hattery performed the traffic impact studies associated with the various rezonings. There were two of them done that contemplated the entire kind of 100-acre first phase of the full ACT campus redevelopment. And what that did was it kind of contemplated all of it for its like highest traffic generation based on the various proposed zonings. And basically that signalization of ACT Drive and Dodge Street was basically critical in order to allow the full kind of holistic traffic signal including Scott and Dodge to function at adequate levels of service. At this time there were not any improvements required and then this included review by MPO JC and the city And there were not any improvements needed by that North Dubuque Road and Scott Boulevard at that time I would also like to note that you know that that's kind of highest trip generation per the zoning. However, we also know that it's anticipated that the existing campus is going to be retained as just office use, which is substantially less trips than the theoretical maximum zoning. Similarly, this project, as Danielle outlined for the amount of units versus allowable density of allowable units, is still well below the amount studied by the traffic studies. And then also my last kind of point there is there still is further analysis to be done as, you know, you kind of work further east into the other kind of roughly 300 acres. So that could in the future trigger the need for additional traffic offsite infrastructure improvements. Let me know if you have any other questions on that.

I'll have you sign in. Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else from the public like to address this topic?

Hello, my name is welcome. Please state your name and city or from my name is don't trust room from Iowa City. I just had a very quick question to the developers. I noticed it.

So you can speak to the Council.

It mentioned in the proposal that the sewer line would need to be upsized due to the increased density of population, and I wanted to know what the plan was to pay for that, whether that would be on the city or on the developer, and also what plans were in place for the traffic in that area during the construction that would be required for upsizing that sewer line.

Thank you. I'll have you sign in there. And while the council there won't be any opportunity for the council to engage in conversation right now, but should the council want to take that up individually, they can do that during our deliberation. Anyone else want to talk on this topic? So you know when a person is in no hands raised online before close this I just want to ask Council there inclined to vote with PNC. I'm going to close the public hearing could I get a motion to give a first consideration so moved Mo second alter Council discussion.

I live there too. I live off Quincy Street. So I think that's a serious concern. I would like to know the answer of the question that brought by the public.

So this is related to the sewer line is there. Please come up and

um i'm not aware of the uh the subdivision developers um development agreement financial aspects of if the sewer line upsizing has any sort of city participation um i think it's likely that it's entirely on the developer but jeff or kirk may know some of that um but as far as i'm aware that's being upsized by the developer the subdivision developer for the sewer line in North Dubuque Road.

The other question was related to the traffic during construction.

The traffic during the upsizing? Yes. So this particular line is on North Dubuque Road, just north of this. And the particular manner that it's going to be upsized is by pipe bursting. So essentially they're just going to, they're not going to actually, because it's extremely deep, And so they're basically just going to dig down right by the manhole itself and then burst the pipe larger without actually trenching down to the pipe the entire length. So you'll probably have some like one lane closures. But there also isn't a whole lot of kind of cut through traffic there at the moment. So it's not like there's going to be significant closures on the major arterial like Scott or something like that. So I would expect it to be pretty minimal impact.

Okay, thank you. And can staff confirm about who's bearing the cost of the sewer upsizing?

Yeah, Ron, do you want to come up and just talk about when the city would participate? I'll just remind council, we don't have a development agreement with the ACT redevelopment team, nor do we have one with Oak Knoll, so any process would just be standard. generally it is the developer responsibility if there's a greater public interest upsize that's when the city may consider involvement.

Right so so when we have an improvement that is that serves a larger area we that would pay for the upsizing that would be above and beyond what their minimum size would be for that specific for that specific just great thank you.

Any of the discussion.

Well, I don't have much to say other than I will be voting for it. I think this is a great evolution of that part of town. And I think we've seen Oknal has created some great facilities out there and trust them to do more. And it's consistent with the comprehensive plan. I do think, though, we should probably keep looking at it out there as far as what signalizations are needed, what traffic studies are needed as it evolves. Because it's, you know, every time we hear a new plan, it's slightly different. just because of what we need. And I do know a few people who live out there, and they're sometimes concerned about how dark it is along that corridor driving at night. But that is not for the purpose of rezoning. I will be voting for this, but I do think it's wise for us to continue to focus on that part of town.

Roll call please.

Sala. Yes. Teague. Yes. Weiland. Yes. Alter. Yes. Burgess. Yes. Harmsen.

Yes. Mo. Yes. Motion passes 7 to 0. We are on to item 11 our regular formal agenda 11 a 2027 Woodside Drive repair project. resolution approving project manual and estimate of cost for the construction of the woodside dry repair 2027 project establishing amount of bid security to accompany each bid directing city clerk to post notice to bidders and fixing time and place for receipt of bids and i'm going to open up the public hearing and welcome

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Tim Schmiedeke, and I'm a civil engineer with the city's engineering department. The Woodside Drive Repair 2027 project is the replacement of a sanitary sewer manhole, the pavement associated with the work, and upgrading a nearby storm sewer. The project is located on Woodside Drive. Woodside Drive is a private road on the west side of Iowa City, just south of Kinnick Stadium. The sanitary sewer manhole on Woodside Drive is partially brick and partially concrete. brick portion of the manhole is degrading structurally and the overall depth of the manhole is 16 feet deep the manhole is at the center of woodside drive so because of that depth and the location of the manhole the entire width of the street will have to be removed and replaced within the pavement removal limits is a nearby storm sewer drain that's very undersized gets clogged easily with debris and creates puddles there so we'll be replacing that with a storm sewer intake and Upgrading the connection to the existing storm sewer Because Woodside Drive is a private street the sanitary sewer work will be taking place within a 25-foot permanent sanitary sewer easement and the storm sewer work will be taking place in a temporary construction easement that was agreed upon with the property owner and This project meets two parts of the city's strategic plan. First one being economy. It ensures that the current infrastructure is not requiring yearly maintenance and prevents the further deterioration of this structure, which would result in added replacement costs down the line.

rehabilitation project, establishing amount of bid, security to accompany each bid, directing city clerk to post notice to bidders, and fixing time and place for receipt of bids. I'm gonna open up the public hearing, and welcome.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Alin Damaki, senior engineer in the public works department. Today I will show you a brief presentation regarding the Riverside Drive pedestrian bridge at Iowa Avenue rehabilitation project. This project was previously bid in October 2024, so most of you will already be familiar with the scope of the project and the information presented tonight. Since we received no bids during the first letting, we have made several revisions to the plans to address constructability issues that might have affected contractor interest. While the overall project remains substantially the same, the revisions have resulted in changes to the proposed traffic control approach, which I will highlight those when I will get to the traffic control slide. This project is located on Riverside Drive just south of Iowa Avenue intersection. And for a little bit of background information, this bridge was built in the early 1960s and it is similar to the Burlington Street Bridge. and this bridge has facilitated a safe and convenient connection for thousands of students faculty and staff between downtown iowa city and the university of iowa medical campus a 2019 bridge inspection report identified the need for significant rehabilitation to ensure its continued safety and functionality This pedestrian bridge has been reinspected this past July to determine the progression of the deterioration. In the next couple of slides, I will show you the current conditions and the extent of the deterioration, justifying the need for in-depth structural repairs. As you can see in this slide, the bridge exhibits significant cracking, spalling, and general degradation of the concrete structure. The bridge has outdated railings, inadequate or inexistent lighting, and worn surfaces that contribute to a visually unappealing appearance. To extend its useful life, this pedestrian bridge In the next couple of slides, I will show you the current conditions and the extent of the deterioration justifying the need for in-depth structural repairs. As you can see in this slide, the bridge exhibits significant cracking, spalling, and general degradation of the concrete structure. The bridge has outdated railings, inadequate or inexistent lighting and worn surfaces that contribute to a visually unappealing appearance. To extend its useful life, this pedestrian bridge needs extensive structural repairs. As for the project scope, this project generally includes structural concrete rehabilitation of the existing bridge, spiral ramp and stairs, structural concrete coating, expansion joint replacement, ADA improvements to the sidewalk connecting with the Iowa River Trail, and Aesthetic improvements including new handrail new electrical lighting in new bridge deck coating In the next slide I'll highlight the staging and the traffic control First I will start with what has changed from the 2024 letting and During the 2024 letting the traffic control was very restrictive due to the requirement for nighttime work only and which was basically 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and it also required that all traffic lanes to be open by morning and during daytime hours and that led to Basically led to constructability issues because repairing the bridge would require form work that would need to remain in place for a minimum of 28 days for the concrete to cure. Because of that we went back to and revisited the design and we made the following changes to the traffic control. Riverside Drive will now be allowed to be reduced to one driving lane southbound and northbound. Newton Road and Iowa Avenue will be closed at Riverside Drive for the duration of the project. Pedestrian Bridge will also be closed for the duration of the project. And lastly, pedestrian and vehicle detours will be posted for the public. This exhibit shows the actual traffic control during the general two stages of the project. In the image on the left you can see the outside lane closure which will allow for the work to take place on the spiral ramp and the outside portions of the bridge itself. While the image on the right shows the Lane closure over inside lanes and the work area being in the middle highlighted in red. During both of these stages, Iowa Avenue and Newton Road will be closed. We'll probably likely will allow emergency access only for emergency vehicles. For construction timeline and cost, we'll have a bid opening on October 12th and the award will be on October 20th. Specified construction start date is May 17, 2027 and construction completion is August 20, 2027 before university semester begins. The estimated construction cost is $1.4 million out of which the portion for the City of Iowa City is 25% or approximately $350,000. And with that, I'm ending my presentation. If you have any questions. Can you go back to the schedule again?

And how does that align with the University of Iowa schedule?

So the date of May 17th is the first Monday after the commencement ceremony's end.

Yeah, but they wouldn't be doing any work that day, probably, and then August 20th, how does that align with school start?

That is the Friday before the start of classes, which is, I believe, August 22nd.

And what kind of measures does the contract have in place to make sure that the contractor actually gets done by that August 20th date?

For this rebid effort, we are actually implementing incentive and disincentive. The incentive consists of an amount equal to $2,500 per day for a maximum of 10 days in which the contractor is incentivized to finish early if possible. If not, the same amount will apply as liquidated damages indefinitely. until they reopen Riverside Drive, Newton Road, Iowa Avenue and the bridge itself. Thank you.

I had a question. Did I hear correctly that the ownership of this will be in the city's hands after it's finished or?

No. So the bridge is currently owned by Iowa DOT, the city of Iowa City and the university. Iowa DOT has, we have a memorandum of understanding that dates back to probably more than 20 years in which Iowa DOT is responsible for 50% of major maintenance costs and the city and the university 25% respectively. Okay.

Aline, you mentioned the improvements, I think, relating to accessibility for the connection with the Iowa River Trail. Is there going to be any work on the tunnel that goes underneath Iowa Avenue?

No. The tunnel going under Iowa Avenue, I believe that one was completed two years ago. That was a separate project. It also involved a railing replacement, too. Okay.

And then just if you know, did the, and I realize it's not apples to apples because of the restrictions that we had when this was bid the first time, but do you have a sense of how the costs change from 2024 to now?

The cost estimate back in 2024 was 1.3 million and this one is 1.4. Of course it reflects increases in inflation materials. However, we also have this cost also includes $25,000 for the incentive. So just a minor increase, I would say.

Thank you.

All right here are no more questions. Anyone from the public like to address this topic. If you're income Council chambers please come forth. I do see one online please state your name. No, I'm going to acknowledge you please state your name and city or from welcome.

Well, can you hear me.

Yes, what's.

All right. Hello, it's good to talk to you all going to spend a minute. um so i have some questions about so this is allegedly there's going to be accessibility upgrades so i'm just wondering like who were disabled people consulted in what they need for to make it more accessible or is it just people making these decisions

And you can continue to make your comments and council could choose to take up any item during our deliberation.

Okay. And also what is the slope of this ramp going to be the spiral ramp? Because if it's just going to be a 112 or a 114 like your library ramp, that's not a good ramp. It needs to be just spit on here at least 116 preferably i mean 120 would be great but i understand that'd be a spacing problem so i'm just curious like what what's the actual accessibility this thing going to be and i would love to see the council expand more on that and ask more questions about the accessibility of this Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else like to address this topic. You can have a seat. Yes. Thank you. Anyone else. Seeing no one in council chambers or online. I'm going to close the public hearing. Can I get a motion to approve please. Some of the white line seconds either. All right. Council discussion.

Yeah, I guess I would just ask what is the decision making process when it comes to what is deemed as an upgrade of accessibility and also what are we looking at for grading when it comes to the ramp?

We're having staff come back up.

Thank you. Thank you for your question. We will be addressing some accessibility issues, especially pertaining to the sidewalk that goes by the river and connecting with the sidewalk that goes under the bridge. However, when it comes to the accessibility pertaining to the actual spiral ramp, unfortunately that is not something that is part of this project because this is a maintenance project and under federal highway administration guidance maintenance projects are not required to pursue major MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS IN ADA COMPLIANCE. WE HAVE HAD CONVERSATIONS I BELIEVE TWO YEARS AGO WITH CONGRESSMEMBER MOE AND WE WENT, WE SPENT A GREAT DEAL OF RESEARCH AND WE HAVE ALL THIS INFORMATION AVAILABLE FOR YOUR INFORMATION IF YOU WOULD LIKE IT. And I believe the Federal Highway Administration makes a distinction between maintenance and alteration. So for a maintenance project, making these extensive ADA improvements are not mandated. However, if it would have been an alteration, then yes. We would have been required to make significant changes beyond what is currently in the scope of this project.

And the ADA improvements on the sidewalk would be the width of the sidewalk or?

The width, the running slope, the cross slope. Okay.

Alin, do you know the slope of the spiral ramp?

The slope of the spiral ramp, I know for a fact because I measured it myself, the cross slope is compliant, so it's less than 2%. The running slope on the actual corkscrew is over 8.3, which is the maximum allowed. It's, I believe, 9.7. And addressing that would require basically complete demolition of the spiral ramp and a complete redesign of the bridge.

And is that more comparable to what we're doing on Burlington Street where we're eliminating the, where we have the very long area to change the slope?

It would be probably similar, yes. We would need a lot more area to allow road reduction in the running slope.

So we don't expect this bridge to be accessible as far as the bridge part itself with that degree of slope. Correct. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Continuing council discussion. Roll call please.

Wai-Lang. Yes alter yes Burgess yes harm some yes Mo yes saw it and Teague yes motion passes 7 to 0.

We are at item number 11 seen to get a motion to reconsider amending budget positions in the police department resolution amending the budgeted pull positions in the police department by adding 2 full time police officer positions and one full time police sergeant position. And item number one, could I get a motion to reconsider the motion to defer?

So moved.

Alter. Second. Harmsen. All right. And I'm going to have our city attorneys, Eric Gores, kind of give us some comments at this time.

Thank you, Mayor. We don't see a lot of motion to consider, so it's worthwhile talking it through procedurally, particularly for the benefit of the public who's present or might be watching at home. Motions to reconsider can be made by anyone on the prevailing side of the earlier vote, seconded by any council member. And then if the motion succeeds, then it just returned, it basically voids the earlier vote and you're back right to where you started last time, in this case for the motion to defer. No motion or second needed, it's already there. If the motion to defer then fails, then we'd be back to the underlying main question, that is the motion to approve the resolution which adds three police officers to the police department. And all the other rules that would apply to approving an item would apply at that point.

I just have a question. Like reconsidering this and putting back, if this could be like through also all the things that you just like sibling, is this like true for any kind of cases? Like if we resume something and It like passed and it was only four to three and I come next time and say I would like to put it back on the agenda because I want to Like, anyway, I just wanted to bring it back or ask three council members or the mayor to put it back. Just like, I don't know if you get my point, is this like all the time for any other cases or is this certain votes that we can reconsider it after it failed or it passed or anything?

Well, the most significant hurdle is that the motion needs to be made by someone who is on the prevailing side on the earlier vote. So it's not just someone who is upset and wants a second bite at the apple, for example. It has to be someone who was on the winning side.

On the winning side. Yeah, on the earlier vote. No, that's what I mean.

Whatever the vote, yeah, okay. Whatever the vote was. I haven't researched whether there would be any difference in a rezoning. Obviously there are some differences there because you've got a property owner in play and so forth. I would need to research that to be able to answer that.

Yes, just like knowing which one we can do it or not. Yes, I got confused on that.

Yeah, happy to talk about that if that ever comes up. Sure.

Thank you.

Sure. any questions by the council to eric any more questions okay council discussion And so just so the council know, we're going to have three actual opportunities should things continue to move forward with votes. And so the first two are really council, what would I say, more of a council votes. And then the third should we get to the third opportunity. then the public will have an opportunity to be a part of the discussion because we'll be back to that original item that was on our last meeting. right so here are no other any other questions or any comments here none roll call and this is a motion to reconsider the motion to defer so just for clarification um i'm going to ask eric just to clarify what sure a yes and a no means sure so this is just shall we revisit the earlier vote essentially

Yes or no? Yes. A yes vote would mean, okay, we're going to go back to that earlier motion to defer and then talk about that and then vote on that. No is nope. Happy with what we did last time. Let's stick with the status quo.

roll call please alter yes Burgess no harmson yes Moe yes Sala no Teague yes Weiland no motion passes 4 to 3. all right we're at item number two of this one if the motion to reconsider passes which it did the motion to defer already moved in second it will come to a vote so motion to defer item until after the strategic planning session it was moved by burgus and seconded by salah and now this is the opportunity for the council to discuss before we take another roll call for these items is there like community comment or of the next item only the the main if we get to that one correct this is more Council related.

Procedural versus substantive is how I would put it.

Okay, got you. I guess I would just ask out of curiosity, you know, I think we made the decision at the last meeting to wait until we have our strategic plan conversation and also wait for some other numbers to come out. I just get pretty confused. I feel like in many, like any other circumstance, I think that would be a normal thing to do. I feel like when we talk about law enforcement on this council, it just people kind of stop thinking how they normally would. And it's very frustrating for me. And I think that when I look at this giant thing on our board, it's our values. The first one is racial equity. And we're not even willing to wait until racial bias study comes out before we add to the police department it doesn't make any sense to me and the fact that we already made the decision and now we're doing this convoluted way of getting it back on the agenda when I think we all know that probably after we have a conversation after we have a conversation it would probably end up the same way. So knowing that this is a position, these are positions that are going to take years to fill, and knowing that I think that this is an extremely important thing for the community and also for our values here, what's the harm?

With due respect, Oliver, we didn't all agree for the same reasons that we agreed to wait for the numbers and until our strategic plan. I agreed to defer because I wanted us to have a conversation which I put forward in our work session for us to put one on the books. I said personally I needed to sit with this information. That was my reason for it. I actually made a call to all counselors explaining that. So I, with respect, we were not a consensus of we all agreed to wait for the this particular piece of information and for this, that was not what we all felt. And also to put that we all are somehow not adhering to the values that are in front of us if we're not voting in the same way, that's problematic to me.

I would just add that it is routine that this council has had before us opportunities to increase staff to reposition staff. outside of budget times, outside of really, I think the waiting for something, that has not always been, I can't recall one time where we were waiting for something when staff came before us with a request for additional staff or repositioning of staff outside of our budget period. So I just wanted to bring clarification or just wanted to state that this is Well I think people are calling this unusual this is not unusual because this is a is a department of the city of Iowa City that is coming before the council to request outside of the budget time for additional staff.

I would just add that I think what makes it unusual is that it is a subject that we know the council is divided on and so requesting a deferral in order for us to have more information I don't think is a big ask I just want to add that based on our work session conversation earlier today when we the question before us now is whether we would defer until after our strategic planning session we did learn that based on counselor Salah's conversation with the executive director of EC cog who will be Administering that process that they hope for that to occur in mid-october. So we don't have that scheduled yet but as far as our strategic plan facilitator is concerned they were looking for about a month from now for us to have that conversation just so that We have a good understanding of the time frame that we're actually talking about And I also believe that

We are not saying that we are against the idea of hiring those people for the sake of what happened at the pet mall. So I just believe that we already have three positions available right now and they can just, even I, my suggestion was to proceed with that, adding maybe more money to make one of them as a surgeon and continue and just wait for us to evaluate everything and come back and see what exactly is needed. And the strategic plan is going to be like soon. So I don't know why we want to just like push it even though I'm sure 100% we are not between now until we get that study and discuss this, we are not going to hire another three police officers. We're not. The thing that we even don't want to wait, that's really concerned me.

The reason that I don't think we need time to, excuse me, the reason that I don't think we need time to defer is because this is something that we have been talking about for years since before I was elected on every single budget cycle, something that we are continuously collecting data on, on what our ratios are. That's been in the study of the police for years and how we're an off kilter. We've been studying what we think is appropriate for a long time. And this year, in this budget cycle, I would have voted for more police officers. But after talking with this group through a three-month budget discussion and individual conversations with individual counselors, I believe that pushing for additional police officers would have led to a split 4-3 budget. I naively believed that this current budget that had no increases in the number of police officers was a consensus budget, and that's why I went along with it. So for me, no, this is not directly just tied to the Ped Mall. It's the reality that we have 60, 70, 80,000 people in our downtown, and in the past we've had two police officers. When you think about how many people are in Kinnick Stadium, that's fewer, and there's like 120 police officers. Now I'm not saying we should mirror that at all, but the mismatch between how many people who are in our downtown, who are both members of our community, but also outsiders, outsiders that we can't necessarily reach with a lot of our prevention programming, Like that is something that I felt for the last couple years was inappropriate and that we needed to think more broadly about that. But I didn't push it. I didn't push it because I believe that our community wants us to build consensus. And I was naive. I was wrong. We didn't get there. We had a 4-3 vote this year. So for me, I don't need more. Sorry, 5-2 vote. Apologize. It was a reconsideration. But I guess that to me was... Is this all part of one long conversation? And we should continue to get more data, and we should continue to calibrate and adjust, and we're not gonna just sort of have a moment in time where we're done talking about this. I fully expect every city council after us to continuously have these conversations. I expect them to. But at this point in time, I don't need more time. So on the narrow issue of deferral, no.

Just a quick clarifying question for staff to be clear for the record with what you just said, Josh. Has staff requested three additional officers in the last six? I don't recall a time that there's been a request for additional officers outside of this in my tenure on council.

No. We had over the last probably 10 years we've had requests for individual positions sworn and civilian but not three at one time. Okay.

Just to be clear that there wasn't a. And I didn't say that staff recommended it.

Right. Okay.

I specifically said that I talk to the downtown district regularly. They track how many people are downtown. And it's a lot of people. And I love downtown. I spend a ton of time down there.

And, you know, I was just trying to clarify because I thought I heard you say we've been talking about this for years.

We've been talking about the appropriate number of police officers. It comes up every single year. This is the first time staff has requested this. You're right. But you're completing two issues. Okay. So we talk about how many police officers, the correct amount of police officers all of the time. Do you agree with that?

I don't recall we talk about how many police ever.

Every single year we've said no more police officers. Or I shouldn't say we. That has been a demand. No more sworn officers.

I think all the problem I remember we're talking about the police is there is budget sitting there every single year is not being used. And let us use it for something else. And, you know, because every year they don't use it because they did not hire the three police over that we approve. I think that was the only conversation we talked and it was like being seen to the community and to this council and we are cutting the police budget. And that was not true. There is money was sitting there is not being used. EVERY YEAR FOR FIVE YEARS, AND IF WE JUST BOUGHT AFFORDABLE HOUSING WITH THAT MONEY, EVERY YEAR $300,000, IF WE BUILT TWO HOUSES, NOW WE WOULD HAVE ALMOST 10 HOUSES FOR THE FIVE YEARS. SO THAT'S WHAT WE WERE, I DON'T KNOW, CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, THAT'S THE ONLY THING THAT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT. WE NEVER TALKED ABOUT THE RATIO BETWEEN THE RESIDENTS AND HOW MANY POLICE WE HAVE TO HAVE. WE ALREADY APPROVED SERIOUS OFFICERS. It's never been filled out for five years. And that's what we are talking about. And right now we say fill it, fill the three officer and wait for us to like go and see the study and make sure do we really need to increase the police officer? Is that the solution for like refunding crime or like the shooting in downtown or anywhere in the city? That's exactly what we want to see. Maybe that's not the right solution. This is recommendation by the staff. And I don't believe it's based on any study that I know. The staff can come tomorrow and say, actually, we need 10 police officers more so we can keep this community safe. But based on what? That's exactly. But I don't remember, Counsel Josh, that we talked about how many police we still have, comparing to how many resident in Iowa City.

I will say that we did, every time, with the exception of this past year, where there was not an ask for additional police. Police racials always come up. It's just a part of any staff request. So yes, we did talk about staff ratios when it comes down to the police department. Now I will say the most of the some of the positions that we approved were specialty police position so maybe what we'll do is come back to the topic which this is now as because we had a motion to defer which did pass so I'm going to ask Eric to just guide us on what this number 2 item. Sure.

So this is returning to the original motion made by Councilor Burgess and seconded by Councilor Sala to defer this discussion, the underlying substantive question of whether we should add three police officers to the force until after strategic planning is complete. So I want to, if I may, refocus the Council's discussion at this point anyway to the question of shall we defer until that later date or shall we proceed to the underlying question, which was already moved and seconded at the last meeting tonight. And then of course, if the motion to defer fails, then council will have a full opportunity to discuss the question on the merits of whether we should add three officers. And of course that would be after the mayor reopens public comment, I believe this is expressed intent.

Yeah, and I mean, I would say in regards to, you know, my comments, I know that, yeah, everybody views the values that we have up there. You know, people can have different strategies and different opinions on what they mean and everything, but I just think, for me, it's just kind of like a... since we already voted to defer and we know that the study's gonna come out soon and we're gonna have that discussion mid-October probably about the plan, you know, I think that that's To me, that just kind of feels pretty obvious. But like I said, I know I'm not saying anybody's trying to go against the values that are up there. You know what I'm saying? Or like, obviously, we can disagree on that. But yeah, that's all I have to say about deferment, I suppose.

I will say as far as deferment, when we're talking about revisiting our strategic plan, I think we are all aware that we will not be getting into the weeds on anything. And I think we mentioned that in the last meeting. And any time we've talked about our strategic plan, yes, we identify priorities and such. But even then, once we get to those priorities, Some won't come before the council for discussion. Staff will run with that. Some will come before us on discussion. Even with that, I do see this as a separate item. I don't believe that this is... The that this is based on that discussion I it it doesn't seem like it is the same questions. For the discussion that we're going to have once this do become come before the Council. I think that the discussions on what the other and we're going to be doing. We're going to continue to have those conversations. And just like Councilor Moe said, those conversations will continue even beyond, you know, any of us sitting here on this council. So I will say while, you know, we have, you know, this has been deferred for the strategic plan as well as for that and conversation of one the strategic plan is broad will identify some priorities by this council and then when we do have specific conversations by this council which we already have one on our work our pending work list work session list even that I won't get into the specific nitty-gritty of the police department positions. I think it would be a lot of discussions on and how do we include our police officers and police department with all of the and services that we already have, enhancing them as well as potentially, well, no, I was saying as well as adding additional for our community.

And just to reiterate, in conversations that I had with each counselor prior to this session, in talking about this, one of the things I needed to sit with and to, as I did sit with this and digest, was in fact that a strategic refresh is, this is not the same situation as saying we now are in a place to do a new strategic plan. We are revisiting and looking at the priorities that we have. and that this conversation to look at a holistic approach to public safety would either suck up all of the oxygen, which is not fair to the other instances, or it would not be getting enough attention within a strategic refresh, right? So that was something that actually I talked to each counselor about and said, so it deserves its own conversation. So that was kind of part of what I needed some time and then it was all right to say so. Here's where I'm at. I appreciate you bringing that up. And that's why I also then brought up in the work session, let's have a dedicated session to talking about that.

And I think that's awesome.

I'm just saying as sort of a reiteration to what the mayor was saying, this isn't new right now. We talked about this, or I mentioned it. This was some of the conclusions that I came to. after the last convert, the last formal meeting.

Yeah. And I just think that having that conversation before this vote would be more appropriate. We can disagree on that like obviously but especially when, Yes, this has been talked about for years. And by this, I just mean, what direction do you go with how you address public safety? Do you just kind of like do the norm and just hire more police officers? Or do we look at other communities that have, you know, and I feel like the and conversation, and I really do trust that we're going to have the and conversation, but I think we can imagine some of the hesitation and skepticism that I might feel when years before I was on council looking at council when I just haven't seen that conversation go forward at a pace that I think is um urgent enough um and sometimes i feel like we're we're always going back to it's very frustrating when i feel like we explain ourselves um like i will explain myself my my positions the exact direction uh that i'm thinking and then i sometimes i feel like people aren't listening and the exact same argument that i hear just says it's said over and over again when i'm like that's not the argument that i'm making so it's just like i just want to be able to bridge that gap before we can vote on something i think the conversation that you're proposing could be a really good opportunity for that and that's why i'm so grateful for it um

Yeah, everyone. So this is the thing. If we held this conversation to strategic planning, if we held this conversation to our work session, do you think this council would really be focused in on the end? Or do you think we'll be focused in on three positions? I don't. This is a separate conversation from the end and the strategic planning. It is a separate conversation. If we combine it, the entire conversation is going to be focused in on should we hire three positions. This is a separate conversation and I think, at least for me, I'm ready to move forward to reconsider the vote or it would really be the motion to defer that is on the, that we're going to be voting for right now.

I just want to comment on that. I know it's completely separate from two separate topics.

It's a staffing request.

Yes, it's a staffing request, but based on what? Who said that if we have three additional police That's what really reduced like shooting and everything.

I guess they're not saying that it would reduce shooting their staff right now. We have people working overtime. They're already doing it. They're already working this.

But what we already have city like already was this and that we did not fill it out for about 30 years. They can use that to reduce the amount of overtime if we're talking about overtime only.

Those other two positions are what I'll consider them specialty positions. And they also, you know, can be filled. It takes time, as we know, for them to get through the process. But I think the question that we probably should return to, not to, is to really go back to anything related to the deferment, which, of course, you were on that topic as well. All right, I'm going to call roll call at this time.

All right, it's question is whether we shall defer until after the strategic planning session alter. Yes, harmson no Mo no Sala yes Teague no why line yes.

Motion fails. 4 to 3. All right, we're at item number three. Because the motion failed, the underlying substantive resolution already moved and seconded will come to a vote at this time. It was moved by alter and seconded by Mo. And then at this time, I'm going to reopen the public discussion period. If you are online, I'll ask that you raise your virtual hand if you're in council chambers. I just want to get a sense of how many people want to talk to this topic. If you can just raise your hand. All right. We'll ask people to come up. There is a sign, a little sticker in the back that you can or cardboard in the back that you can pre-fill out your name and just drop it in the basket up here and you won't have to sign in we're going to go with 3 minutes for everyone. Typically we go about 30 minutes or so so I just kind of see what we land. I anticipate will be able to have it we're going to get everybody up here to speak. We want to hear from you we're going to start here and please state your name and city or from.

before i get started is what do i do about this security alert well i click close and it opens up again we'll just move it okay um so these pictures were taken near the ped mall that is one two three four five six seven seven officers standing around in a circle um so if we are currently staffing these positions with overtime and the council is seriously considering paying for a dedicated ped mall beat permanently I do think it's important that we think through how an incident might play out in practice, as Mazahir was talking about the idea that this could prevent a shooting. So if a similar scenario to what happened in April were to happen again, there's a lot of drunk college kids downtown, as Josh pointed out, a lot of people downtown all the time. An altercation occurs and someone pulls a gun and opens fire. First, we should note that the station is like a couple blocks from where that picture was taken. And I have heard that the police response time to the April shooting was something like 43 seconds. I don't know if that's correct or not, but I think it took me probably 43 seconds to get up here and get the presentation started. So I don't think you can get a response time much faster than that. But if I'm being generous, we'll say like having this beat, staffing this beat shaves 10 seconds off police response time because every second counts in an emergency, right? Especially if someone's been injured, except the thing is cops aren't EMS. So we're not staffing paramedics on the ped mall. And in this scenario where a shooting has resulted in an injury, rapid police response doesn't change the circumstances for the shooting victim. They are still shot and they still have to wait for the ambulance. So now that police are on the scene, there's a few different ways the scenario could play out. Let's say, like in April, the shooter flees before police can apprehend them. That person is going to be arrested somewhere else by some other cop who isn't on this beat. And in that scenario, staffing additional police has done literally nothing to change the outcome. But let's be generous again. Let's say those extra 10 seconds allow police to arrive before the shooter has a chance to flee. Remember that we're in the middle of a panicking crowd of drunk college kids. How does a cop apprehend a shooter? Do they fire their own weapon? If one cop fires, will the other six start shooting too? Will they be able to discern friendly fire from an external threat? What is the likelihood police disarm a shooter in an inebriated crowd without causing any further harm to bystanders? And herein lies the fundamental flaw with policing as a response to violence. because police are armed agents of the most violent branch of our municipal government. Staffing more people with the means and permission to use lethal force makes it definitionally impossible to end violence in the community. We can all plainly see that the status quo is not working. If police proximity to downtown was an effective tool to prevent violence, the April shooting never would have happened. You cannot keep sinking more money into police, expecting them to solve problems driven by poverty, patriarchy and alcoholism, while letting the programs that could actually address those conditions go woefully underfunded in comparison. If you are going to vote on this issue, you need to understand that putting more people with guns on the panel is the absolute surest way to ensure more people get shot.

Thank you. Online, is there anyone that would like to speak? Please raise your virtual hand. And if you're in council chambers, I ask that you just come up, come forth.

Well I guess I'll just leave this up because I can't figure out.

If you're in council chambers and wish to speak please come forth now.

Thank you.

Please state your name and city you're from.

Hi, my name is Storma Brink. I'm from North Liberty, but I've worked in Iowa City for nine years doing various nonprofit work at different organizations, typically serving vulnerable people and marginalized populations. I don't support adding more police positions to the budget because we've repetitively asked for alternatives to traditional policing due to the disproportionate targeting of marginalized individuals by the police and the violence perpetrated by law enforcement on the citizens of this town. I have concerns that adding more police especially to the downtown region will result in the targeting of more marginalized people who frequent the area or live there, especially the homeless. Police do not prevent crime. They just respond to it. Staffing police at the schools has not stopped or reduced school shootings and so I don't understand why it would make any meaningful impact on violent crime when we haven't been able to do that at any other location that there have been a history of mass shootings. The response time to the pet mall is Kellen talked about was incredibly short, about 43 seconds. And I don't think that staffing more police will make a meaningful difference in ensuring the safety downtown. But for the marginalized and homeless people who live there and frequent the area, I do think it will make them less safe and more likely to become incarcerated. I am asking you to vote no on adding more positions. And I'm asking you to instead maybe consider funding community initiatives that aim to target the causes of violent crime. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll have you sign in, please. Thank you. And I'll invite the next speaker up. And I do also invite people to the back to get a little card so you can write your name and just drop it in the basket. So I'll welcome the next speaker at this time. Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from.

Mary McCann, I live in Coralville. Royceanne is here. And half of what I was going to say had to do with that. So I'm sure she's going to come on up here and talk about it. But so I will speak for myself. I appreciate the concern about race. As you know, from the time I was a child, I was raised by a mother who dragged me through marches where I was certain one of us was going to be killed. And I then spent my adult life south side of Chicago and coming here to work on the south side over here with people. I believe in scrutiny. And I believe that the chief believes in scrutiny. The problem here is that we have people working overtime. Overtime is not a good thing for law enforcement. Having a peaceful life away from law enforcement is essential. He's trying to protect his people by giving him the opportunity to have a normal life. And I think you're overlooking that because we're all consumed about discrimination. We're all consumed about disparity. But I would ask you please to reframe what you're thinking about and realize that if you're not taking care of the overtime problem, you're not taking care of the police, and that is your responsibility. I was raised in a family with five religious practices, all political parties. It's a real party when we get together. Multiple races and the freedom to express their own identities, that's a given in my family. In their positions in law enforcement and the military, none of their religions or political beliefs are part of their career work and that's the only thing we agree on when we all sit together and discuss the problems. I've been outraged by the Iowa laws that were codified using a religion to end personal freedoms we once valued in Iowa, banning books, ending parental rights, bodily autonomy, the list goes on and on and all of you know it. I am sad to say that when we talk about the anti-law enforcement group, you do the same thing my family does. Religions punish one group of people to achieve their own utopia. And I see much of that going on when we talk about anti-law enforcement. So I will ask you to rethink some of your thoughts and understand again, the well-being of the police officers and law enforcement is really essential if you want them to handle themselves with absolute decorum and safety.

Thank you. I'm going to ask you to state your name for the record because you did not mention your name when you first started. Thanks. And I'll have you sign in. I'll ask the next speaker to come forth and we'll have you state your name and the city you're from. Welcome.

Thank you. My name is Nick Colangelo. I live here in Iowa City actually for the last 10 years. I've been living right in downtown in the Ped Mall. So I get to see on a daily basis some of the changes, some of the things going on. The Ped Mall, the whole downtown is a pretty crowded area. When we have athletic events, cultural events, it is a whole different situation that many other towns don't have that kind of influence. What I have found in my own life is that people act much better towards one another when they feel safe, when they feel that what's precious to them is taken care of. One of the amazing things is our Ped Mall is a thoroughfare for college students and right in the middle of the damn thoroughfare we have a children's playground. Brilliant. because what it says is that there's room for different age groups. We have a library right there. We have senior citizen center very close. This is a town that actually is quite well integrated. A lot of university towns, the university is on the hill and the town is elsewhere. We're much more integrated than that. When I look down and I see the children's playground, there are kids from all ethnic backgrounds, colors playing. And the one thing I know as a grandparent, all the grandparents, all the parents there, the one thing they would not dispute is they like knowing that their kids are safe. Police is one of the ways we should assure that. I think having more police is really going to be important to our future and to our present. But just adding police is not enough. What we need to add are police who are trained in the values of this community. I have seen oftentimes, not everybody agrees, but I've seen several times going by where police actually use the words that defuse situations. They're strong in being there for people. And so if we can have more of that kind of police, then we're really getting somewhere. We will all be a much better community if we feel safe towards one another. And I trust you that if we do hire more police, that you will see to it that they are trained in the kinds of values that really matter to us.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll ask the next speaker to come forth. Please state welcome. Please state your name and city you're from.

I'm Lisa Martinsick from Iowa City. And I'm curious what outside research you all consulted to decide on this course of action, that being the addition of three police officers. And what exactly do you hope to achieve? And if it is, for example, a reduction of violence downtown, what gives you the reason, what data gives you the reason to think that that will achieve it. Local context always has to carry weight, of course, but ignoring the extant body of evidential research is a disservice to community, and I think... Anything?

So I am Jess Lang, I'm the coordinator for the Johnson County Community Violence Intervention. We work with people who are at high risk for gun violence. I apologize that we weren't here for the last meeting, but our two-person team was in Ankeny at a Youth and Family Justice Summit. um the partnership between cvi and iowa city police department as well as law enforcement agencies throughout the county is critical in the success of our work marcus and i spent a very long late night into the early morning at the ped mall the weekend after the shooting in april we heard nothing but positivity from the young and older patrons that they appreciated the additional officers and felt safer knowing that they were there and close by We witnessed no negative interactions and actually witnessed lots of healthy exchanges with law enforcement, including lots of college kids displaying smiles and even some laughter after witnessing a horrifying event only a week earlier. This was not something even I expected, but it was a good welcome sight and I believe good for everyone. The creation of this new team will allow the Iowa City Police Department to participate more fully in our efforts with cvi chief liston and the department have been incredibly supportive but current staffing levels often make it hard for their officers to participate having an additional law enforcement presence downtown opens up the possibilities of collaboration and outreach not only for cvi but for our downtown district the university and the community as a whole keeping the residents and visitors in our city safe is the responsibility of all of us we will continue to work hard and find ways to keep our community safe alive and free of gun violence with the help of the entire village coming together as always thank you for your continued support of cvi thank you

Thank you. I'm going to ask you to write your name or you're going to drop it in the basket. Well, great. Thank you.

Marcus did it.

All right. I'll ask the next speaker to come forth. If you're online and want to speak, please raise your virtual hand. Welcome.

Please state your name and city you're from. Marcus Brooks. I live here in Johnson County. I'm the CVI outreach worker. Representing as the community violence intervention outreach worker here in Johnson County, I agree with the Iowa City Police Department and UIPD continuing to partner with CVI to the best of their ability. It is a great idea and continue to strengthen the number of law enforcement in downtown Iowa City. We are confident that this will reduce violence or any attempts for violence to take place. Most importantly, ensure safety for pedestrians and students. Getting ahead of potential incidents is the key and presence is a primary form of influence. CVI would like to say thank you to Iowa City Police Department and UIPD as well for their efforts. As the outreach worker of Johnson County, I will continue to do my best to further outreach to those in need, along with my colleagues, Jess Lane, coordinator of CVI, Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County, Johnson County Attorney's Office, and Johnson County Public Health.

Thank you. Thank you. I welcome the next speaker. I want to see the hands of anyone that remain that want to speak at this time. I'm going to ask you to raise your hand all the way up, those that want to speak. One, two, three, four, five, six. Those are the six that will have remaining speaking. Anyone online that wants to speak, please raise your virtual hand at this time so that I can make count. I see no one. Please welcome. Great. Please state your name and city you're from.

Emily Cross, Iowa City. My name's Emily Cross. I serve as the undergraduate student government president. at the University of Iowa. In my role, I serve as the voice for the undergraduate students. I am speaking in support of additional police officers for downtown Iowa City. The safety of full-time residents, students, businesses, and visitors in downtown Iowa City is an issue that deserves thoughtful and sustained attention. Downtown is an important part of the student experience and thousands of students regularly spend time in the pedestrian mall and surrounding areas. Our downtown is frequently mentioned by students and their families as their appeal in choosing Iowa. Students should be able to attend events, support local businesses, and enjoy downtown, all while feeling safe and secure. I recognize the concerns raised during council's recent discussion. Several council members and members of the public emphasized the importance of examining available data, considering alternative approaches and policing or to policing, excuse me, understanding the financial implications of additional positions and evaluating models used by other communities. There are important considerations, particularly as the city enters discussions surrounding its strategic priorities and budget. The discussion highlighted the unique demand placed on public safety personnel in the high density downtown environment, particularly during the nighttime hours. The city already values the relationship-based policing through the initiatives such as the Downtown Liaison Program, which focuses on proactive patrols, outreach, and building relationships with downtown businesses and patrons. Students are not simply visitors to downtown Iowa City. We are residents, employees, customers, and members of the broader Iowa City community. our experiences and concerns regarding safety should be considered along with crime data budgetary considerations community-based interventions and public safety strategies I recognize that adding additional personnel is a significant and long-term investment. The city's own strategic plan emphasizes both improving safety and maintaining fiscal responsibility, while also supporting the innovative public safety models and partnerships with community organizations. I encourage council to carefully consider how additional resources may be deployed effectively, what measurable outcomes can be expected, and how the city will continue to support approaches to community safety. As USG president, I will continue serving as a bridge between the University of Iowa student community and the city of Iowa City. I appreciate the council's willingness to engage in this discussion and consider multiple perspectives. Thank you for your continued commitment to the safety and well-being of Iowa City. I look forward to continued collaboration between the city and the University of Iowa as we work toward a downtown environment where all members of our community can feel safe, welcome, and supported. So I encourage you to vote in support of the additional officers. Thank you.

Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from.

My name is Matt Hayek. I live in Iowa City. I served on the city council for eight years and I'm here to tell you it's a lot easier to be out here than up where you are. I'm with a law firm that has been downtown for 100 years. I co-own a small building downtown where our office and our restaurant are located. I spend a lot of time downtown. And the property taxes on our building are staggering, and I do appreciate the budget pressures you face. But I am here tonight to urge you to fund the downtown walking patrol request. I think a key ingredient of downtown's success, as was mentioned earlier, is the geographic integration of the university. It's often hard to know whether you're standing on campus or next to campus when you're downtown, and this sets us apart from places where the university is cordoned off. Think of UNI, think of Iowa State. But behind that success is an implicit promise from the university and the city that they will ensure the safety of those who live here, those who study here, and those who visit here. And if that promise cannot be met, if there's even a perception that downtown is unsafe, I think we jeopardize the university's interests and that of the community. We want the art lover to come to our festivals. We want the music fan to go to the Englert. We want the foodies in our downtown restaurants. And very importantly, we want parents to feel comfortable with their students coming downtown, especially when the Ped Mall is packed. My daughter attends the University of Wisconsin, and Madison is just as progressive as Iowa City. But when my family spends time on Madison's Ped Mall, the presence of officers there on foot, in cars, even on horseback is more noticeable than here. The city of Madison provides more police staffing per capita, and as a parent, I am comforted to know that the community where my daughter is spending her college years is doing what it can to protect her. This should not be controversial. You have a compelling staff memo, and importantly, you have a very willing partner in the university. My suggestion is to get this done and to send the message that this council is committed to safety in our downtown. I thank you for your service.

Thank you. Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from.

Hello, my name is Dalton Strausser from Iowa City. One thing I wanted to bring up, it kind of been mentioned before about the integration of the University of Iowa and Iowa City, how the lines are blurred, how a lot of the downtown traffic is students, drunken college students. and so one thing that doesn't really seem to be part of the conversation on this joint task force between University of Iowa Police Department and the City of Iowa City Police Department on sort of like who is shouldering that responsibility and as part of this new task force, like why is it how much is the university providing additional police downtown as part of this versus the city of Iowa City where was that split made how why questions about that thank you thanks and I believe you signed in earlier is that correct yeah that'll be fine I welcome the next speaker welcome please state your name and city or from

Hi, my name's Paige Liebrecht. I live in Coralville. Just a few comments about this. My main question is basically, are we adding police to feel more safe? And it sounds like we are. And I would ask you to consider if additional police officers make you feel safe, how are your life experiences affecting that safety you feel? And maybe consider that other people around you don't feel more safe. in the same way that you do when there's more police around. When one portion of the community is suffering and their suffering starts to impact another portion of the community, we should not try to reduce the suffering of that second community. We should focus on reducing the suffering of that first community that's showing pain. think the request for additional police funding and additional police positions is reactionary and it's also very predictable we could have seen this coming we could have talked about what what could be done already i'm not sure if you have and my last point is that if downtown businesses who are doing very well want police presence they should fund police presence it should not be on the city thanks

Thank you. Invite the next speaker. I'll go online to Noah. Welcome. Hello. Hello. Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from.

Hi, my name's Noah. I'm just here to urge y'all to vote no on expanding the police. A previous speaker mentioned ICPD just shot somebody. So at the bare minimum, we should maybe defer this vote on to see like if ICPD just, you know, murdered somebody. I think that's something, you know, maybe this council should take into consideration before permanently massively expanding it with 300K to half a million dollars every single year. I think we should just slow down this role to push more cops in our community. Like for years, I keep hearing this council talk about this. Yes. And yes. And the yes is always more cops, more funding for cops. And then the, and just gets ignored and, or we give them like a couple thousand to the ants while we're giving millions and now a half a million more every single year. to the yes so there can be no and you keep finding the yes you can't have the and part of the conversation you're precluding it you're stopping it everyone in that room knows the state just made it so much harder everyone knows the financial situation of the city and yet they're saying yes we're going to commit to half a million dollars the cops more every single year that we can't get rid of i think that's ridiculous Thank you. Vote no.

CHRIS JERRAM, Thank you. All right. We have just a couple more speakers. I'll invite them up at this time. Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from.

yeah my name is nix i live in iowa city i just want to say that you know listening to your conversation it's i just found it a little bit appalling that the strategic plan and the strategic values of the values of the community are not central to this conversation i believe that should be central to everything that the city does is taking into account the strategic plan and the values of the city And as Councilor Weiland pointed out, right on top there, racial equity, social justice, and human rights. I'm looking right at it. I mean, it really made me think about what happened after the shooting that happened on the Ped Mall and the vitriolic racist white supremacist shit that was happening on Facebook that was perpetuated in our town and on my street. where there was white supremacist literature dropped by white supremacists who probably live in our town. But I see no conversation about making sure that communities, marginalized people, black people in your town feel safe when that's happening. And they know that people believe those things. That's not a part of the conversation, but we are talking about half a million dollars to go to police and not making sure they feel safe. Yeah, that's all.

Thank you. All right. I think we only have one more speaker. Please come forth. Please state your name and city you're from.

Boy Sam Porter, Iowa City. Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Royceann Porter. I am here tonight as president of the Black Voices Project and as a new downtown business owner preparing to open Royceann Soul Food Express in the Old Capitol Town Center. Tonight I am giving my full support to the proposal to hire three additional Iowa City police officers to serve downtown district. and i would like to watch this project meeting the members in attendance discuss this issue and supported adding these positions we understand that our officers are working mandatory mandatory over time while also being acts to maintain a visible presence on the pad mall and throughout the surrounding business district that is not sustainable for the officers our businesses or our community supporting additional officers does not mean that we stop demanding accountability fairness and respectful policing It is a great idea and continue to strip the number of law we can we can support safety while continuing to expect officers to treat every person with dignity regardless of their race, age, income, housing status, or mental health needs. These responsibilities must go hand in hand. As a black woman, a long time community advocate, a former Johnson County supervisor, and someone who previously worked as a juvenile court liaison, I understand why some members of our community have concerns about law enforcement. those concerns must be heard and taken seriously but i also believe our families young people employees visitors and business owners deserve to feel safe downtown as i prepare to open my business i am investing in downtown iowa city i want my customers and employees to feel comfortable coming to the area staying in the area and supporting our local businesses a safe and welcoming downtown benefits everyone for these reasons the black voices project and i fully support hiring the three additional officers i asked the council to approve these positions while continuing its commitment to accountability community engagement violence prevent prevention efforts and fair treatment for everyone i have listened to several people come before this council and speak about What black people and other marginalized members of our community supposedly want, let me be very clear, you do not, and I repeat, you do not speak for all of us. The Black Voices Project has discussed this issue and the members present supported hiring these additional officers. Please stop using black and marginalized people as a reason to oppose public safety measures without hearing directly from us. We are not one voice. We do not all share the same opinion. You may speak for yourself or your organization, but you do not represent every black person or every marginalized person in this community. Many of us want accountability and fair treatment for law enforcement, but we also want safe neighborhoods, safe businesses, and a safe downtown. We should not have to choose between responsible policing and public safety.

Thank you. I do have one last hand that is online. I'm going to acknowledge it at this time, and this will be our final speaker. Welcome, Dan. You're on mute. Unmute yourself, Dan, please. You're on mute still. Dan, you're still on mute. Okay. I am going to, oh, there you are. Well, I think he went off and he may come back on. I'm not exactly sure. We'll give it one. A minute. Yeah, there's a chance that it went back. Yeah.

Okay.

Dan, you're acknowledged at this time. Welcome.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you. Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from.

Hi, my name is Dan Cobble, and I live in Iowa City. And I'm sorry about that. My app crashed. I would just like to say that there's a lot of virtue signaling that happens with the council. And a lot of you preach progressive values and claim that you support the best practices of a modern police department. But when push comes to shove, y'all don't. For example, this agreement will entrench ICPD's relationship with UIPD, which anybody in this community who's in the know will tell you that's not a good thing. UIPD is not a good agency. If you look at the ped mall cops, you'll see some of these ped mall cops hanging out with UIPD officers who have a history of excessive force targeting trans people, targeting activists. I mean, it sickens me that y'all are going to be paying people to hang out with verifiably bad cops like Travis Tyrell, Ian Mallory. I mean, UIPD is a horrible agency. And it sickens me that this partnership is going to continue. I mean, people like Sean Harmsen, Councillor Sean Harmsen, have gone on public record defending UIPD discriminating against folks. So I guess it makes sense that people like Sean will vote for this. But, like, Megan, come on. Like Bruce, I mean, y'all know what this impact, what kind of impact this will have on folks downtown. And it sickens me that you're gonna be putting residents in situations where they will be harmed by officers. I mean, just go for more practical solutions to gun violence than the stupid proposal like this. Thank you. And sorry again for my technical issues.

Thank you. All right. Thanks to everyone that have come before the council to give their comments. I'm going to turn it over to council discussion at this time.

how am i was taking notes for all the speakers because there's always good ideas that come from community comments so thank you for those who spoke up appreciate that um i'm gonna ask you to pull your mic oh sorry and i'm also like my voice is i'm losing my voice so i apologize for that too um thank you the speakers um took notes for everything um i don't know about ems or on the ped mall but it sounds like an interesting idea that we should look into and like i'm totally open to that I also understand that we want to have people who are in the police force who share our values, and I see that. Officer Farrell is such a great example of that, and I'd love to see more of that. That's something that's safety and well-being up there. And then I think the thing that struck me most and from the handful of emails I received from people who didn't want this and some of the comments tonight was the idea that we're not investing and not doing a whole lot of money and doing a whole lot of efforts and spending a whole lot of money on prevention and alternatives. We need to do a better job of explaining how much money we're spending on that, how much effort is going into that and apparently how invisible some of these people who are doing that hard work are right now. because we are doing it and there's we should always do more i've always supported it i've always voted for it and i've always voted for every budget that supports those efforts so i i will continue to support all of the things that are part of safety and well-being police being one of them and i'm going to be voting yes for this

Just kind of piggybacking off of that too, I was thinking about this as well in the literally millions and millions of dollars of things that I voted for, many of the people on this council had voted for in budgets over the last four and a half years. The upstream kinds of things, everything from affordable housing, trying to keep people You know money for shelter house for job programs for the even some of the more specifically talking about downtown We talked about some of the reconstruction That we did on Dubuque Street and other places to improve things like lighting the alley there That's off of there kind of by where studio is. I mean a lot of things there's there's a Gosh, I could go on and on, but millions and millions of dollars worth of upstream kinds of things. Cooperation with CVI, and thank you for the work that you do, and just all kinds of things that we do on these upstream kinds of projects. We also have supported other kinds of projects that have been violence intervention, sort of upstream kinds of things, and thank you to former supervisor uh porter and our mayor who i know have personally been involved in some of those efforts and have helped help people get on the right track and be stay on the right track and so so these things are all happening and you're right sometimes we don't do a good enough job of making sure the public is fully aware of that so So those are all things that happen. Some of the things I like about this proposal, specifically that comes to us, and one of the things that you talk about other upstream ways of preventing violence. And what we saw is we saw the police chief in the wake of April 19th increase the amount of foot patrol and police presence, especially in the pet mall in a targeted area. for targeted times, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, and of course, April 19th, I mean, that wasn't football season, right? So this isn't gonna be limited to, I mean, we have a lot more people downtown during football season than home games, and that's an important piece of this, but certainly that's not limited to when we could have problems. So the police chief and the police department ups and increases this patrol for a while to basically try out the concept. And during that time, we learned here a month ago now, that they were able to confiscate half a dozen firearms during that time. That is an upstream intervention that other sorts of interventions can't do. You're not going to have a social worker try and take a gun off of somebody. And no social worker I've ever talked to said that that's part of their job, nor would I expect it to be. So those are important. Having presence, and somebody did mention that, that sometimes that presence plays, is one of the things that plays a role in preventing violence. Now I was curious as to sort of, it's been a while since I've been hanging out downtown around bar close. So I actually did a ride along and walk along with the ICPD here a couple of Fridays ago. And was able to sort of witness that kind of thing and what some of the other kinds of interventions, things that I hadn't thought of look like. And part of that, people have mentioned the alcohol use. And I think it's fine for people to come downtown and enjoy themselves and have a good time. But I also watched our officers, and always in professional manner, sort of go in, take fake IDs. And that kind of thing prevents young people who are learning sort of their limits from over excessive drinking. So it's not just about shootings. There are other kinds of bad things that can happen in that environment. And again, that's something unique to that role that they can do, that law enforcement can do. So all of those things together with the proposal that has a very targeted space, a place, a very targeted time, the evenings, Wednesday through Saturday, for a very specific purpose in the foot patrol, I think all of that makes sense. But to me, what really pushes this over the top is the component that can't happen yet because it's not just about the overtime, it's about the community policing aspect. So when the proposal that came to us included that community policing where they've got officers who will be consistently downtown on those nights, both the busy, and the slow nights building relationships with the people that work in downtown from you know 8 9 10 11 o'clock in the overnight the bartenders the waiters the waitresses the you know bouncers all of those kinds of things building those relationships just like we have right now in the daytime with our daytime liaison and so extending that into the nighttime hours in a way that can be consistent that you can only get that consistency if you have a certain number of officers who are dedicated to that to that patrol and to that mission, I think brings not just the kinds of public safety things we're talking about here, but other kinds of public safety. Because as we know from the daytime liaison, that that officer is also building relationship to other people who are downtown a lot. has been instrumental in helping people members of our homeless population achieve to get into the system and and get off the streets and get into housing to get ahead of problems before they happen because they know people that come back time you know time and time again and able to do that so that community policing part plus the benefits of the interventionalist nature of having an officer you know some things only an officer can do and Adding all of those things together really puts me going to be a yes vote on this.

um i think i'd just like to clarify um i i think that there's kind of a and i i think partially it's like the way that the conversation is framed um uh and i also believe you know the general public isn't really privy to a lot of like the conversations that have that have been had in um uh i i think people think that you know the While I speak for myself here, the issue has never really been what I think that the chief should do with his resources. If that is a place where the police think that they should prioritize using their department and increasing their presence there at that time, I think that that's the chief's call. I think that... we can achieve the same thing and everybody can get what they want if we were able to do that education if we were able to have the conversation because you know i hear like we're already doing all we can you know um And that's just not true. I mean, not all we can, we're doing so much, you know, and it's like, I just, I feel like if we were able to actually have a conversation and listen to each other more, and that's not just on every, that's on me too. You know, I think that we should all do a better job of even in the hard things, talking to each other, making sure we understand each other, because what it comes to it is, you know, you look at programs like the Durham heart program, for instance, you look at Denver star, you look at Atlanta pad, you look at the mediation program in Dayton. I mean, those are just a handful off the dome and they, Able to do the exact same things when it comes to increasing police capacity Without hiring additional police officers it gives these communities People to take things off of the police department's plate and make them able and available to respond to the most violent things Nobody's talking about sending social workers to a gunfight. Nobody's talking about sending social workers to Violent things this is about programs that are just proven to work. And when they're properly financed, when they're given the opportunities to thrive. And I just really think that we're talking about diverting calls that is way more than three police positions. So I think everybody can have what we want. I think everybody could be happy in this situation. I think that the conversation around policing is hard. I think that the average people are not really, really, really looking into these things. And I think that when we talk to our community partners who are already providing a very bare bones version of these things, they can come out and say, this is these are the resources that we might need you know and those are the conversations i would love to have and i know we all want the same thing we all want to save downtown like i said before i live there it's chaotic um at 2 a.m when i'm woken up by drunk people throwing objects at my house but um yeah i just really think that um you know the conversation has been framed as if we are voting yes or no for this thing to exist whether or not when speaking for myself I just think we can provide the same thing through different means that would not only potentially like save the city money, but it would provide an essential service that when you look at the places with these types of programs, it's just invaluable to those communities. And it's hard for them to walk them back because they're so popular. And so, yeah, I think we want the same thing. We disagree on strategy and that's okay. And if we vote to have these extra police officers, you know, I'm just looking forward to have that and conversation with all of y'all because I know we all want the same thing. And I appreciate you again, Megan, for earlier in the work session bringing up that we should have this holistic public safety conversation. So I'm looking forward to it.

Thank you for that. I come full circle to when actually this was first introduced at the work session by Jeff and Chief Lyon with their proposal.

I always say Lyon.

I apologize to both Chief Lyon and to Chief Liston. And I talked about I'm yes and. And I think that what I'm hearing more and more is that actually, and I don't think anybody on the dais here is gonna really disagree, that we aren't having a yes and conversation. We're trying to figure out it's a no and conversation. And I think I am, I still am a yes and. Yes, I see, The reason for having three more officers who are dedicated to the downtown for a very specific purpose and a specific reason for doing work that I think could be really helpful for the downtown area not just the pet mall but for that area a as well where there are also crimes being committed usually unfortunately assaults. And I think that there can be both a response mechanism, but I think there's a lot in terms of community policing that can actually be proactive from the police. I take a lot of stock and heart from the fact that, in fact, six weapons were taken off of the Ped Mall without incident since April. In terms of data, I like that data. And I'm an and because, yes, there is more we can do. Yes, we need to continue looking at it. And we do have programs that I don't think we have highlighted and brought to surface or talked about how can we make them more successful? How can we make them more robust? In part, it's because they're buried within not specific conversations about public safety, but in terms of what we're already doing, in terms of how we're funding aid to agencies. about the work the community is doing, about the work that our substance use agencies are doing, about how we are working with housing, how we are working with mental health. We're funding those every year through our regular budget, and that is a part of proactive, foundational, how do we try to prevent some of this? Is it enough? No. And we need to do more. So I just want to reiterate my commitment to this while saying it is more nuanced than saying y'all aren't doing anything or you're all doing it completely wrong. And I know that passions get hot. we all have particular ways in which we're looking towards this but um i'm committed as i said from the work session and then had to sit back digest a lot of information and i return and i am full circle i am a yes to this to these positions and i am committed to saying okay and what else are we doing in a continuum so that we have a fuller more robust way of looking at public safety and approaching it

i'm just really glad we're actually having this conversation it's tense it's difficult i hear people you know in in different places maybe than we've been before and been able to speak publicly about i think fundamentally differences of opinion are about the degree and speed and level of investment you know i think about my conversations with chief liston and with jeff is we consistently come back to like, wow, we agree on so much. It's just I want to push harder and faster and have a commitment to going deeper on ways to keep our community safe that aren't so focused on traditional policing. And I think about, you know, I'm glad to see Matt Hayek here. I think about the 21 ordinance and the 500 foot rule were things that happened in our downtown in my lifetime that I remember significantly changed for the better the safety of downtown. And I think it's, know it's been frustrating through these last couple of meetings to have this framed as there was a shooting in order to increase safety we propose these three positions i do think that that set us up for you know kind of a a fight about this one thing instead of having this holistic conversation but i'm incredibly grateful that i'm hearing commitments from all of you that we really are going to have that conversation that it's been we'll be on the work session list and I think that when we have the opportunity to be a data-driven community, to prioritize the values that I do believe we all share, that we may come to different conclusions. That's why I asked to defer the item and I still want to have that bigger conversation I think I hear you, Mayor, and I appreciate you saying they have to be separate conversations. I do think they remain really, really tightly bound. And that's why we have members of the public saying, I do feel safe or I don't feel safe if you add more police. But it sounds to me for this evening that the understanding of the majority of council If this conversation is completed, then we move on to the and. And I hope.

And just to be, and I'm so sorry. No, go ahead. I know I interrupted, but it's like, And the and is I truly want the and to be as we talk about holistic is and how did the police fit into this and cannot be a synonym for other it's it is a spectrum right it's additional it's how is it as an ecosystem right it's it's not there's the police And then there's this other thing. They are as a fitting.

Which is why I've always tried to talk about this all together. You're exactly right. You're exactly right. So I am not going to be voting to increase the budget and the number of positions because we currently have unfilled positions. We have an average of $800,000 every year over the last i don't know five ten years whatever the time frame that jeff provided us of unspent money in the police department i understand the staffing patterns i understand the need to create the desire to create this headroom i but i also know that the chief can reallocate resources as he sees best fit and we will be committing ourselves to one way of doing something that will be very, very, very difficult to undo in the future if we want to make different decisions.

Okay. I wanted to start by saying that I really take the reasons for shooting and the violence in the community very seriously. Everyone should be able to feel safe. downtown and throughout Iowa City, not only even downtown. And we have responsibility as a council to respond to something like this. But I do not believe that every time we experience violence, the immediate answer should be adding more permit police positions. Before we make that decision, I think we need to ask some basic questions. What problem are we trying to solve? What is the causing of this problem? And what evidence do we have that adding three additional police positions would be different than shooting or addressing the problem? We already have three police positions, as my colleague mentioned, that have been vacant for years. I think it was more than five years. Before creating three additional permanent positions, I would like to make every effort to fill for is the position we already have and see what additional capacity that will provide. I also think we need to distinguish between responding to crime and defending crime. More officer downtown may increase police visibility and may help officer respond when something happens. But That does not necessarily mean that we are preventing the violence from happening in the first place. And I want us to think carefully about what feeling safe means for different members of our community. I'm going to repeat that. We need to do that. We need to think carefully about what feeling safe means for different members of our community. Through my work with immigrants and refugees community, I know that some people come here from countries where police and security forces have been associated with fear, intimidations, corruptions, or abuse of government power. This experience do not simply disappear when someone arrive in Iowa City. For some immigrant refugees, seeing more police officers does not automatically make them feel safer. It can sometimes have the opposite effect. Some people may be afraid to approach an officer, report crime, ask for help, or even spend time in the area with a heavy police presence. I am not saying that this is the experience of every immigrants or every refugees or every black person, but it is perspective that should be part of our conversation. When we talk about what make our downtown welcoming and safety for everyone, we need to think about that. Police absolutely have an important role in responding to violence and protecting the public. But public safety is bigger than a number of how many officers we have. We are also undertaking an important work around disparity and traffic stop. I want us to learn from that work and combine it with the data we have about this incident and broader examination of what is causing this violence to begin with. If we are serious about prevention, we should be asking, what are the circumstances behind this shooting? Are there patterns as we have from the report? What intervention could happen? What prevention could have prevented this situation before they escalated? Do we need more youth engagement, mental health resources, violence prevention programs, community-based interventions, or partnership with business and community organization? I want us to look at the problem from its root. not only what happened at the downtown or somewhere else after 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. in the morning after the situation has already escalated. So I am not ready to support the staff recommendation to add three permanent police positions at this time. I would prefer that we first work to fill the three positions we already have, as Michael mentioned, continue the disparity and traffic stuff study, examine the circumstances and the data surrounding the recent volumes, and have broader conversation about prevention and root cause. This does not mean doing nothing. We should continue using the resources we currently have to respond to immediate public safety need while we do this work. And if the evidence ultimately shows that additional permanent police position are needed, then we can have that conversation. But I do not want us to decide on a solution before we have fully understood the problem. Our goal should not simply be more police present downtown. Our goal should be preventing violence and creating downtown where everyone is safe and everyone can feel safe. I would be what you know.

I want to say thanks to all the community members that spoke today really appreciated your words and all those that that's been reaching out. I think there's a lot that my colleagues have said and I won't go into all of it because I think the the heart of what i hear is it was before us now are those three positions and the and conversation so i want to start by addressing the and conversation so we've been this council is committed to the and conversation every last one of them i already know that committed to the and conversation we've done some elements of the and conversation so i don't want to diminish the work that we've been doing uh with the and conversation where we I think what we are today is once again saying we're going to have the and conversation. The and conversation anytime there has been a presentation to this council about the and conversation, something tangible, this council has approved it. I think we've been talking about having the and conversation, and the and conversation typically comes, we've had the and conversation in theory a little bit, but we've not had a proposal before us, or the proposal that we've had before us we've approved. There's been no proposal that we've denied on the and conversation. I don't want, you know, residents and my colleagues to minimize that, you know, that our desire for the end conversation or that something's been presented tangible um i've even you know made statements that if we uh put a dollar amount to the and conversation if someone on this council want to put a dollar amount to have the and conversation make that proposal and so that hasn't you know it has not been done but nevertheless I do think this council will have the and conversation. When it comes down to staffing, staffing patterns, I do believe that it is this council's duty and job to hear from our staff and make a decision based on the information that we have. I hear that folks are saying that there's been no research, no data. This is a continuing conversation. that the police department has somewhat come before us in past years requesting additional staff. We heard that in 15 years, there's only been four sworn positions. That's in 15 years. And I think that's good. That talks about what this council has kind of that's our duty of making sure that we're looking at what the need is in the moment. And even though there's been additional positions at time, I imagine that the council looked at the positions in the moment and made the best determination of what was before them. I can't overstate the need for someone that is trained to be doing this work downtown. So we know that our staff is doing overtime work. And I do believe that this is a part of our assessment to hear from the police chief. I heard it already stated that the chief made the call to place the officers downtown, and that's respected. And that's their prerogative. If we're looking at the overall positions that are open, we know that the last time we had this conversation, nine of all the total 85 positions, nine of those positions were not filled because people were out on leave or they were in the academy. We have folks that are part of the military. They can be gone for a year. There's a lot of things when it comes down to positions. just staffing patterns. But that aside, if we're saying that I heard $500,000, I heard $800,000 that the police has not used in their budget, so if they don't use that in their budget um there's been proposals to you know convert allow that money to be used we know that the police office uh the police department is always trying to hire um they had just got up to their um full almost to their full capacity minus two but just when you do that there's another change in um you know a a position there i don't believe that I believe that the staffing patterns are appropriate. The police department is continuing to work towards the 88 number, should this be, well, 85 number, and should this be approved at 88. And I just don't believe that it is this council's decision um position to ignore what the staff need as well as just making sure that we have well-rested staff that is attending to this call that the police chief has already made so i'll be voting for this and the and conversation i do believe that um because i think i heard the majority of four uh leaning towards voting for this today um This will allow the and conversation to happen without focusing on, because I feel like the conversation will be derailed to one focus, and that would be three positions. So should this pass today, I really do believe that the and conversation will happen. It will be holistic. That would include public safety, which it should. We should not be sitting there determining how many police positions should be appropriate. That is not what this council focus should be when we're having the and conversation and we're having that holistic conversation. So I'll be voting for this for the three positions. I'm gonna call for roll call please. Bergus.

No.

Hermson. Yes.

Mo. Yes. Sala.

No.

Teague yes my line no alter yes motion passes 4 to 0.

4 to 3. 4 to 3.

4 to 3.

I'm used to 7 to 0. 4 to 3. 4 to 3. Okay. Could I get a motion to accept correspondence, please?

So moved. Bergus, second. Alter?

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes seven to zero. We're on to item number 12, which is announcements of vacancies new. We have the Board of Adjustment. One vacancy to fill a five-year term January 1st, 2027 through December 31st, 2031. Board of Appeals, one vacancy for a building design professional to fill a five-year term, January 1, 2027 through December 31st, 2031. Climate Action Commission, three vacancies to fill a three-year term, January 1, 2027 through December 31st, 2029. Human Rights Commission, two vacancies to fill two-year terms January 1st, 2027 through December 31st, 2028 and one vacancy to fill a one-year term January 1st, 2027 through December 31st, 2027 in accordance with Ordinance 26-4990. Parks and Recreation Commission 2 vacancies to fill 4-year terms, January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2030. Public Art Advisory Committee, 1 vacancy for art or design professional to fill a 3-year term, January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2029. Public Art Advisory Committee, 1 vacancy for at-large representative to fill a 3-year term, January 1st 2027 through December 31st 2029 senior center commission to vacancies to fill 3 year terms January 1st 2027 through December 31st 2029 applications must be received by 5 p.m. Tuesday October 13th 2026 item number 13 is announcements of vacancies previous. 13 a airport zoning board of adjustment one makes it a fill a 5 year term. Airports on the board of adjustment when they sit to fill a 5 year term. Board of it peels will they see for a licensed electrician to fill a 5 year term. Board of appeals will they see for H back 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 Woolan Avenue representative to fill a three-year term. Vacancies will remain open until filled. We're at item number 14, which is city council information.

There will be an Economic Development Committee meeting on September 30th.

At 8 a.m., come join us.

We can't. Valor Point, the VA. Yes. housing uh is going to have its ribbon cutting tomorrow which is exciting from four to six um there's going to be the um soul train block party I'm so excited about it um a week from tomorrow so Friday September 25th from six to nine Friday right oh god i'm just doing it all wrong sorry a week from friday september 25th six to nine and uh then there's a couple other things and if nobody else mentions them i'll come back um yeah just kind of reminding we talked about this earlier in the meeting but the uh iowa city latino fest is this saturday in the ped mall um and then the weekend after that

I'm tossing it off to you, Maz, for the African Festival.

The African Festival, yeah, I was trying to say that. But before that, this week have a lot of events about Welcome Week. If you want to learn more about it, go to the Great Iowa City website or the county. You will have all the events. I think tomorrow also at the county building, they have also a fair, resources fair from 5 to 7 p.m. And there is many other events continue throughout the welcome week. On the 26th, we're going to have the African Festival. Can't wait for that. This has become very amazing event that we wait for it every year.

And I just want to say that it's the same weekend as Oktoberfest so everybody should go to both events because I think that's so exciting that Iowa City has things that are so wildly different and beautiful at the same time. Forget about Soda Fest. And only a couple blocks apart. And Soda Fest. Soda Fest.

Only like all within walkable.

They got the craft stuff.

Make sure to go to all of them. All of them, go to all of them.

I just wanted to say that I had, at the farmer's market, I had a very nice lady stop me and say she doesn't use internet or really uses her phone much, but she said that she wanted me to state publicly that our landscapers and the people who plant the flowers for the city have done an amazing job and that she really, really appreciates it. So I'll send an email as well telling them that, but I just told her I would say it from the dais. Nice. Because I agree.

The one that I was going to mention, and shameless, I was like making sure because I couldn't remember the dates and clearly I can't remember days, but Climate Fest, right? September 22nd through the 26th. So that is, and I now have my, so a week from tonight, today, so next Tuesday through Saturday. So there's going to be events every day. To celebrate that and climate fest is amazing. So lots of fun as well as educational, but it's also just like a lot of fun. So.

All right. We'll throw it over to our city. Item number 15 reports on items from city staff, city manager's office.

Nothing tonight. Thanks.

City attorney. No, thank you. And city clerk. All right. We're at item number 16. Can I get a motion to adjourn? Almost out of second alter all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes seven to zero have a good night. Thank you. Thank you.