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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-09-07 Transcription Page I Council Present: Bergus, Mims, Salih, Teague,Taylor,Thomas, Weiner Staff Present: Fruin, Kilburg, Fruehling, Goers, Knoche, Sovers, Havel, Hightshoe, Bockenstedt, Fleagle, Nagle-Gamm Others Present: Van Heukelom, Miglin (USG) Staff presentation and recommendations on priority programs for the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds: Teague: And we're going to welcome our City Manager Geoff Fruin. Fruin: All right, thank you, Mayor. Good to see everybody here, uh, this afternoon. We're very excited to be, uh, talking about the American Rescue Plan Act again. It's been a couple of months since the Council has, uh, last had an update, and as you know, we've been busy the last month or two, uh, with some public input. So, urn, we're going to go ahead and get started. Rachel Kilburg, the Assistant City Manager, is going to assist me with this presentation tonight. So what we're going to do tonight,uh, we're going to start with just a very brief review of the American Rescue Plan Act. We're going to talk a little bit about what we've done this past year in terms of, urn, relief efforts through the CARES Act and local funding as well. Uh, Rachel's going to provide an initial, uh, overview of our public input efforts these last couple of months and I'm going to present some very high level recommendations, uh, to you, uh, in order to help us, uh, move forward, and... and finally you'll have a chance to discuss those recommendations and provide staff with any direction on how we are going to move forward, uh, tonight. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Rachel, who's going to walk you through,uh, a brief overview of the American Rescue Plan Act. Kilburg: Yeah, I'll just,uh, do a quick kind of refresher. So as you'll recall, the legislation, um, was passed in March of 2021, and it...the American Rescue Plan Act is an expansive$1.9 trillion federal COVID relief bill that encompassed, um, funding for a variety of different programs. This included the $1,400, uh, stimulus checks that went to qualifying individuals, additional, um, unemployment benefits were part of this bill, more supplemental funding for other federal programs, such as housing, public transit, um, food security benefits, and then a large portion of the bill, of course, went to, um, accelerating availability of the vaccine, but what we're focusing on tonight is that $350 billion in state and local fiscal recovery funds, which is direct entitlement funds that were delivered to every city and state, uh, in the country. So as you'll recall, of those funds Iowa City has received $18.3 million. Um, other kind of notable allocations in the area: This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 2 Johnson County has received just over $29 million, and both Coralville and North Liberty have both been allocated around $3 million. So as a reminder, these funds are delivered in two phases. So Iowa City received our first, urn, half in May,just over$9 million, and we expect that we'll receive that second half of funding in May of 2022. So next May. And then the spending deadline, in terms of spending deadlines, we will have until the end of December of 2024 to, um, obligate or encumber the funds, basically to commit what we're going to spend those funds on, and then the end of December of 2026 to actually have all those funds spent out. So again I'll do another quick reminder here of those eligible uses. If you recall, there were these four broad, urn, eligible expenditure categories written into the law, and the U.S. Treasury has, through both their final rule and supplemental guidance that they're been, urn, periodically updating, they have further clarified, defined, and um, provided examples of what would and would not be eligible expenses within these four broad categories. So this first one, respond to the pandemic's public health and economic impacts, this is the most expansive and encompassing of the categories. Many of the ideas that we heard throughout this first phase of public input fell into this category. It can contain everything from childcare to business support to vaccine incentives, urn, so that's probably the big category. The second one, premium pay for eligible workers performing essential work, the U.S. Treasury does define both eligible workers and essential work. They also provide some recommendations, urn, a city might consider if they were to go this route, urn, for spending the funds. Third, replacing lost revenue and restoring governmental service levels, again the Treasury provides a specific methodology, a specific calculation for how you calculate lost revenue, urn, and any lost revenue that is replaced, uh, there's pretty broad latitude for how it can be used. And then finally this fourth one, necessary water, stone water, waste water, and broadband infrastructure projects, any other infrastructure projects, unless they could somehow be tied to another category listed here, um, would not be eligible. So that's all I'm going to kind of cover. I don't want to dive into the weeds any more in the guidance and compliance portion, urn, of the ARPA funds. I just wanted to remind you of these four of this kind of...overarching framework, um, and remind you that as, urn, spending decisions are made, we'll have to further vet it through that more detailed Treasury guidance, but for now I'll pass it back to Geoff. He's going to talk a little bit about pandemic relief, urn, that has occurred in our community. Fruin: Okay, so throughout the pandemic the City has, uh, worked with our partners to bolster, uh, local relief efforts, and this has involved using federal funds, state, and local funds to stand up new programs that have provided housing assistance, funds for basic household needs, uh, support for new and non, uh, ongoing nonprofit services, as well as small business grants, uh, targeted at those businesses that struggled to access some of the early federal business support programs. You can see the list on the screen there. Urn, again, some of these are...are federally funded through the City, and others are locally funded. Urn, several of them are still ongoing, meaning that we are still providing, uh, services This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 3 through out nonprofit partners. In total, we've allocated close to $2 million in new relief efforts over this past year, with approximately half of that going to emergent housing needs in the community. Uh, many of these programs are ongoing and thus the numbers you see at the bottom of the screen, in terms of the impact of these programs continues to grow as more and more are assisted. And I want to again stress that while the City was the recipient of these funds and...and helped create these programs, we really executed them through partnerships in our community, through mostly the nonprofit community, and they deserve a lot of credit for being able to stand up and administer these programs, uh, on our behalf and for...for our community, and I think we're going to continue to rely on those partnerships, uh, as we move into the ARPA discussions with you, uh, in the coming months. I do want to talk about, uh, one other partnership that we have and it's something that we talked about early on with ARPA, and that's our...our partnership with Johnson County and I want to highlight one of the initiatives that they undertook this past month. Using two million in federal funds, uh, they were...they, uh, were able to supplement their General Assistance program, which has an annual budget of just around 500,000. They've increased eligibility to include undocumented persons. They've expanded income eligibility to make more persons eligible for general assistance. They've expanded the list of eligible expenses, and they've eliminated the rent cap and increased the duration of the assistance, uh, time period. Uh, we expect usage for this expanded program to continue to grow as word gets out, uh, throughout Johnson County, and I've,uh, heard multiple times from the County that they're going to be certainly watching it closely and that they're committed to being flexible as they, uh, look at the impact of these, uh, enhancements that they've made to the General Assistance program. Uh, my understanding is that they...they two million that they are using to supplement this program is from, uh, previous relief efforts, so probably the CARES Act dollars and not the ARPA dollars. As we begin to make expenditures on, uh, decisions on expenditures, I'm going to really strongly advocate that we try to partner with General Assistance as much as we can. I think it increases a....a number of efficiencies and ultimately will help the households, uh, that access that program by helping connect them with other resources as well. So keep that in mind as you really...as you dive into eligible uses and how you want to use our funds. Uh, let's...let's really keep this program in mind and see if there's opportunities for partnership with Johnson County. Then you'll hear me say this a couple of times tonight, um, we really, uh, have to keep in mind that we are not making our decisions alone in a vacuum. Uh, there are a lot of other components of ARPA that are still being, uh, worked out. Local governments have not made expenditure decisions to date, nor has the State of Iowa. Other federal programs that are coming out of ARPA are still being rolled out and having rules drafted. So for example we know that we'll receive approximately 1.7 million in homeless assistance dollars through a supplemental Home allocation that's coming through ARPA. Those rules are under development and we'd expect those to be published later this fall or in the winter. Those rules, as well as the decisions made by other govern...governing bodies may influence This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 4 how we choose to deploy funds, so we want to make sure that we remain, uh, flexible in how we,uh, in how we begin to move forward. All right, I'm going to turn it over, uh, to Rachel, who's going to just walk through the public input process that we've been through the last, uh, month or two. Kilburg: Yeah, so since we are receiving our ARPA funds in two phases, and we have about five years to spend the funds. We obviously know that ongoing public input will be necessary, especially as you start to make spending decisions and the projects and programs are refined. Um, but the Treasury's guidance is really clear that a robust public input process is necessary for compliance. So as you know, in June we presented our initial public input plan to you all, uh, for your approval, and then in July we launched those efforts. This slide here just shows, um, an overview of all that we've done over these past two months or so. Um, as a reminder to both City Council and the public who's watching, everything that we heard through all of these methods, um, on this slide here, uh,was available in a summarized list in, urn, the memo from last week's information packet. It's also posted online at icgov.org/arpa. But I, like I said, I'm just going to highlight a couple here. So these first two, urn, our online survey, we made it available in Spanish...Spanish, French,Arabic, and English. We also created an informational flier in these same languages. We disseminated that to, um, local non- profits so they could help kind of expand our reach and reach more individuals. Um, likewise with our email, we really encouraged people to respond using their preferred language and then we would translate on the back end, urn, so it wasn't a further barrier to them. We held,uh, in-person listening session, hung out at the Farmers Market to hear some ideas, and we've been collaborating with Johnson County as they are undertaking their really robust input process as well, to hear what they're hearing, uh, within our community. A couple of organizations that I do, urn, want to specifically call out and thank. We were really fortunate for the opportunity to attend the Diversity Market. Uh, Geoff and I attended and we were able to speak directly with the vendors, hear a little bit more about what their needs are, uh, to continue to grow and support their businesses. Also spoke with some visitors there enjoying the market. We also appreciated, urn, that Open Heartland hosted us. They connected us to some local residents in need, so we were able to hear how the pandemic has impacted them, and they provided translation services for us, and then we also want to thank the Excluded Workers for hosting us at St. Patrick's Church. They also provided translation services and arranged for us to hear some stories, again from local residents, and how the pandemic has really impacted them. So there's many other organizations, urn, that we met with and spoke with, both listed here and not listed, um, and we'll cover a lot of those ideas that we heard, urn, in some of the upcoming slides. First, um, I just want to touch on the survey results specifically. Uh, as I mentioned previously, this survey was available in multiple languages. We polled all the results, um, on August 15`h to give us time to prepare for this meeting, and at that point we had received nearly 1,900 responses, including 682 open-ended This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 5 comments. So we had great participation. Urn, that was really exciting to see, and I just want to highlight these top, uh, three response areas. It's probably difficult for...for some to see, but this third one that came in, uh, ranked third highest is bolster nonprofit and social service agencies, and then coming in at one and two is addressing economic disparities in households and addressing health disparities in households. So these top two would fall into that first of the four broad categories I covered at the beginning of the presentation. Urn, and that's also very reflective of what we heard in public input, as you'll see over these next, uh, few slides. If you are interested in wading through the raw survey results, we also did include those in the information packet last week, urn, and they are also posted online at icgov.org/arpa. So these next probably 15 or so slides are going to review some of the major themes and ideas that we heard throughout all...all that we did, uh, for this first phase of public input. Urn, and again, this first phase, the intention was to identify what those emergent needs are and to start to pull out some of those priorities that...that we can start to shape the discussion around. So I'm going to throw a lot at you, but I'll try to move them...move through them kind of quickly for the sake of time. Don't need to remember them all, remember you have that list to refer back to, but just want to give you a sense of what some of these recurring kind of themes and ideas were. So this first one on the screen is business support. We specifically heard a lot about, urn, support for BIPOC businesses, um, we heard both operating and capital needs to help these businesses grow. The need for a commercial kitchen is one that came up, urn, through a couple of different avenues, especially at the Diversity Market to help some of those small vendors and businesses, um, grow. Also heard financial assistance to continue to help small businesses as we weather these spikes, urn, in the pandemic. Next, childcare, early childhood, and youth, we heard a lot about the need for more accessible and more affordable childcare. Um, this kind of could come through two ways, one focusing on, um, incentivizing providers, training new caretakers, urn, making facility investments, or it could come through focusing on the families, maybe providing stipends to...to low-income households to access childcare. Along those same lines, we also heard calls for more before and after school programming, both expanded hours and more types of programming. Uh, we heard outdoor rec; programming for teens that's focused on skill building or preparing for work or earning some spending money. This last, um, bullet you see, the Fashion House, this is a concept brought by a local entrepreneur which would teach BIPOC youth digital design, marketing, and business skills, and then would also serve as a place, urn, for these teens to go and feel safe and build community with one another. Housing and essential needs is next. Uh, this was almost constant that we heard everywhere we went and everyone we talked to, we heard everything from direct checks to those who didn't receive federal stimulus, um, to continuing or expanding our rent assistance programs, our home buyer programs. Urn, home repair assistance was a big one that we heard, um, especially as financial pressures were put on households. They had to maybe divert their income to...to other needs instead. Uh, we also heard, urn, suggestion of hiring a Community Navigator who could help immigrant and refugee This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 6 residents access different programs and social services. Infrastructure projects, uh, this was actually a pretty common response in the survey. We did have a large group advocate for expanding affordable high-speed internet throughout the community. We also heard from a handful who recommended we focus these funds on some water and sewer projects'that would benefit the community, um, such as a lead service replacement (mumbled) I'm sorry, lead service line replacement program or water, clean drinking water, storm water management projects. Urn, in the category of jobs and workforce, we heard ideas for upscaling the workforce, getting more diverse groups trained in certain industries and trades, and this could maybe come through a local jobs corp or pre- apprenticeship program or even through small business incentives. This next category, community development, neighborhood development, and crime intervention. This is kind of, again, a very broad theme area, but encompassed a lot of kind of similar ideas that we heard. The idea is to focus, urn, on a targeted neighborhood that has traditionally maybe been under-invested in and focus on revitalization projects, bringing in neighborhood commercial businesses, focusing on home ownership in the neighborhood, having more community building events, and then kind of along those same lines, um, using some funds to invest in a violence intervention or gun violence prevention program, um, which could come through a variety of ways, such as investing in wraparound services to help kind of interrupt those patterns of violence. Um, relying on, strengthening our existing social service networks, this was another common theme. Um, what we heard here was both recognizing that there are some emergent needs that these nonprofits have to continue to serve at the...at the higher level that they have throughout this pandemic, but also using some of these funds to be more strategic and make some investments, uh, long-term in how our social service network can be more streamlined and perhaps fill some gaps. Urn, we did hear a little about how the pandemic impacted individuals over 65. Urn, we heard some suggestions of how we can continue to work towards our goal of reducing social isolation, whether that's through programming. We also heard other forms of need that this population has—transportation to such programming, scholarships to access memberships, urn, and just assistance with, uh, daily and household chores. Public health, this is another category that encompassed a lot, but a couple of things that we heard. This first one, support for mental health services was a big one,um, we specifically heard support for youth, non-English speakers, and people without insurance. Um, one...one way we could do this is kind of relying on and strengthening those existing crisis services that we do have in our community. Uh, next we heard, um, some support for using some of the funds to continue to mitigate the COVID-19 virus. We heard support for expanding the Healthy Homes program, to include more services, to reach more households. Um, and then this last bullet here, we heard from people who have difficulty accessing medical, uh, and preventative care, due to a variety of barriers, whether that's language or lack of insurance. Um,kind of along that same line, we heard from a handful of people who have substantial unpaid medical bills, both from COVID, maybe it was incurred from the virus or during the virus, or it This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 7 was...these bills were incurred prior to the pandemic, but due to other financial pressures, um, they had to...they had to focus on other needs and those medical debts remain unpaid. Switching gears a little, we did hear from, uh, many who expressed support for arts, culture, tourism, entertainment, recreation, um, both financial assistance to help some of these nonprofit organizations stay afloat, as well as investing in more programming and events to bring people out and continue to work on that economic recovery. We also heard support for, uh, taking our climate actions even further. Um, I think the pandemic probably had people thinking a little bit about, uh,just emergency preparedness in general because we received quite a few comments specifically on resiliency and disaster preparedness, um, taking a look at, um, are we prepared for that next natural disaster, that flood, knowing that climate change could make it worse,um, and then identifying what steps we might take to be more prepared. Uh, following up on our transit study, we heard support for continuing to improve public transit in Iowa City, improved service, explore fare-free options, um, improve bus stop amenities and ADA access. And then this next one, one of the things we did here, um, especially in our meetings with, um, perhaps immigrants is that some of...some of these individuals have lived in our community and worked here for over 30 years and they still don't have a path to home ownership. Um, so we heard a lot of really great and interesting ideas about how we might use these funds to address past disparities and help to support these under...traditionally underserved populations. So some of the ideas listed here are things like financial counseling, debt repayment programs, programs to help individuals build credit or equity so they can better...easier access a loan, and then on a larger scale, um, there were ideas such as exploring community land trusts or agrarian reform. So that was a quick overview of kind of the major themes, and that's pretty reflective of, urn, that, uh, summarized list that was in your information packet. Um, I know that was a lot and I don't expect you to remember it all, so on this slide I just want to quickly recap which of those ideas we heard the most frequently. So first, direct financial assistance, um, is what we heard most frequently, specifically for those who, um, did not receive federal stimulus checks or those additional unemployment benefits. Premium pay for frontline essential workers; affordable high-speed internet; long-term affordable housing; mental and behavioral health services; infrastructure projects; support for businesses and nonprofits; rent, eviction, and foreclosure assistance; a comprehensive nonprofit needs assessment; and enhanced public transit. Those...so those are the ideas that we heard most frequently. And then as I mentioned previously, uh, we know that additional public input opportunities will be necessary as spending decisions start to be made and as we start to focus these bigger concepts into more actionable ideas. Um, like I said, this initial phase of public input, we viewed it as intending to help us identify what are those emergent needs and then what are these big priorities that we can start to kind of build the discussion around. I did want to point out, um, a couple of kind of key pillars of collaboration I'll call it, to kind of consider as these, um, as we make spending decisions, just to ensure that these funds are stretched as far as possible and have the greatest This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 8 impact. So first listed is Johnson County. We have been working very closely with them and they...they are interested in continuing to collaborate. So we'll just continue to, urn, pay attention to how our priorities overlap, uh, as they make decisions as well. Kind of along that same track, we have, um, some really strong community partners who have an excellent track record in helping us carry out all kinds of different projects and programs. So it'll be important for us to keep in mind what partners would be beneficial for us to work with, uh, to help with implementation or efficiency or reach. And then if you recall my intro slides, uh, and Geoff's mention of other ARPA funded programs. We know that this $3.5 trillion package is much, much bigger than the 18.3 million that's coming to Iowa City. So there's a lot of ARPA funded programs that are still in development, underway. We don't know when they're corning or what those details are, so we just need to stay nimble, stay flexible, um, as we do receive those details. So that was kind of a big overview of what we heard throughout this initial phase of public input, and I'm going to hand it back to Geoff. Fruin: Thanks, Rachel. I want to talk over the next two slides about the final two eligible use categories. If you'll recall back to Rachel's earlier slides, there's four eligible uses. Urn, these came up a little bit during public input, but unsurprisingly replacing lost, uh, revenue from government and public infrastructure. You wouldn't expect those to necessarily, uh, rise to the top of, uh, a public input process, but nonetheless I think it's important that Council fully understand, urn, how you can operate within those two use categories. And my strong assumption is that most local government throughout the country, uh, especially cities, will use most of their ARPA funds in these...in these two categories, either replacing lost revenue or investing in infrastructure. Uh, again, that's just my assumptions, based on what I hear,uh, following city conversations on ARPA right now. Uh, so replacing lost revenue and restoring government service levels, the Treasury guidelines, uh, are very specific in what is eligible and what is not, and they're also very specific on how you calculate what you would be eligible for. So we ran the numbers, uh, for Iowa City and we'd be eligible to use 10.3 million, that's about 50%.... 56% of our allocation to replace lost revenue from the pandemic and on a really high level, the way that's calculated is they look at your...your pre-COVID revenue numbers and then they apply a growth factor, kind of a what-would-have-been, uh, type of scenario, and then they just subtract out what your actuals were during COVID. So that 10.3 number will actually probably grow, uh, the...the feds allow you to recalculate that at different points in time during this granting process, so that number could grow. And the funds that were hit the hardest are...are listed there below, uh, waste water, refuse, landfill,parking, road use tax—those are the types of revenues that we could replace. So that could be unpaid utility bills, um...uh, less travel, so you get fewer road use tax dollars being generated, um, and so on. Uh, the second category is the water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure. Urn, we certainly heard a lot about broadband, uh, and I'm not going to focus on that a whole lot. In Iowa City we don't have municipal broadband. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 9 That suggestion has come up; uh, several, uh, Councilors have been involved in those conversations over the years, uh, and you'll know that to start a municipal broadband service is going to cost well beyond 18.3 million, uh, so we...we could hardly make a dent in rolling out municipal broadband with this allocation. Um, we could, uh, pursue some partnerships for free wi-fl and things like that, but these dollars wouldn't be stretched very far going that route. On the water and sewer side, certainly there is no shortage of public infrastructure projects that would be eligible, and as a reminder, our water and our sewer programs are all self-funded, meaning the rates that we charge are what fund the improvements, the maintenance, uh, and ongoing services. So if we, um, don't pursue infrastructure projects with ARPA dollars, those...those still have to happen, obviously, and those are on the backs of the rate payers. We typically would borrow money or we would save up money, urn, and that's reflected in the rates that we charge, um, our households and our...and our businesses there. The top projects that we would urge Council to consider if you want to use these funds for infrastructure are listed at the bottom of the slide. We have an $8 million digester complex rehab at our sewer plant. Um, by pursuing ARPA funds, you could probably look at a rate decrease,uh, in the community because we wouldn't have to borrow the $8 million to fund that renovation, and on the water side, we list about $10 million worth of improvements, uh, in collector wells and in our....on the storage side of things. That...that last one, the nine million, that can actually be broken up into different trunks, so you could do a...a one million, a four... and there's two four million components to that. So that can be broken out a little bit. But if you decide to go down that path, these are the...these are the projects that we would focus on, uh, on the public infrastructure side. Okay, I'm going to get into our recommendations now, and I want to start by just reminding you and the public on the guiding principles that you set, uh, back in June. Urn, I won't read through all of these, uh, but just I want you to know that this...uh, these principles were certainly a lens that we looked through when developing, uh, these recommendations. So we have a...a two- prong strategy in terms of, uh...uh, how we'd encourage you to approach this discussion. Uh, the first is to identify emergent relief needs and begin planning and executing on those. Uh, so those are the things that we need to spin up fairly quickly. Um, we need to quickly explore collaboration opportunities with our partners, and hopefully get some of these, uh, if not all of them, uh, in action, uh, by the end of this calendar year, which is no doubt an aggressive time frame, uh, when you're dealing with federal funds, uh, but something that we would certainly put as our...as our target goal. The second piece is more strategic investment priorities, and that...those are...these are going to be, uh, large topic areas, uh, that we feel are worthy of significant ARPA investments. Urn, but we're not here tonight to...to kind of recommend very specific uses of the ARPA funds. This would kind of be looked at as phase two of public input, where we would get stakeholders together, uh, in these very specific areas and develop detailed plans and bring those back to you. Okay, so I'm going to walk you through the emergent relief, uh, recommendations first. Number one is to direct one time payments to income eligible This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 10 adults who did not receive federal stimulus checks or unemployment benefits. This is largely the undocumented population. This was widely supported throughout the public input process, uh, in pretty much all of the different, uh, venues and ways we collected information. You've also had some boards and commissions, uh, provide you some recommendations on that particular use. Uh, we don't know how many people would be eligible just here in Iowa City, uh, but it's likely in the hundreds, and uh, again, uh, I strongly feel that we should, if we go down this path, our first, uh, phone call, so to speak, should be with Johnson County General Assistance and really explore how we can use that system to execute on something like this, uh, if the County would be so interested. The second recommendation for emergent relief efforts would be supplemental eviction prevention services. As I detailed earlier in the presentation, we've, uh, spent about a million dollars this past year in eviction prevention services, um, and yet we know the problem isn't going away any time soon, and with the federal moratorium, uh, being rolled back, we can expect even more challenges going forward. Uh, so these, uh, emergent relief funds would hope to sustain some of these new eviction prevention programs, not only in the next year but in the next couple of years as the, uh, COVID relief efforts will continue. Um, and to be clear, this could be reinvesting in those same programs that we've already created. Um, or it could be scrapping those and coming up with new ones. That's...that's the...a process that we would have to gather, urn, those that are executing on those services together to say, okay, what...knowing what we know this past year, what would work best. So we would come back to you with specific uses for those funds. Rachel touched on this, but one of the things that we heard over and over again was the need for emergency, uh, housing repairs, and,uh, I can't tell you we heard, um, dozens of stories probably of people that, uh, unfortunately had to put off critical housing repairs, life-safety types of repairs, in order to pay for childcare, healthcare, uh, or other basic needs, and so this would be a program that we would, uh, design and look for partners to execute on, which would provide some grants, uh, for people that had...have had to delay, uh, those necessary repairs. We would probably look for a third party to administer that, um, or we would have to bring on some temporary staff at the City to execute on that. Um, and there's also....you see the slash on that recommendation—relocation program. That's in recognition that unfortunately there probably are some living conditions that are beyond repair and that we need to have some serious conversations about, uh,just providing relocation assistance to, and while this would be a citywide program, um, we definitely know Council has heard over the years, and...and certainly I've been involved in a lot of conversations about the very acute need at the Forest View Mobile Home Park as well. So this program, again, would be citywide, but I would expect a...a heavy concentration need for this in that specific neighborhood. The fourth and final emergency relief, uh, recommendation would be emergency nonprofit operating assistance. Uh, many agencies are still struggling to meet the increased demands, and at the same time their volunteer numbers haven't, uh, bounced back. So they're doing more, uh, with a lot less. Uh, we saw the impact that our This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 11 CARES Act dollars had this past year. Again, we had about 500,000, 600,000 in CARES Act assistance that went towards this type of need, uh, and I think it made a world of difference, and to do that again, I think, would have a similar positive impact on our nonprofit community. So this is a summary of the emergent relief efforts. Um, what's added to this slide is obviously the estimated funding range. Um, again, we're not...not here to...tonight to get your decisions on how much money to put in each category. I think as we move towards planning we'll come back, but I wanted to provide you some sense of what I believe is the range in which, uh, these programs need to be funded at to be, uh, effective and meaningful. The 1.5 million for direct payments to eligible adults. You can,uh, play with the variables any way that you want to, but to give you a sense, uh, 500 people at $2,000, uh, would be the million, and 750 people at $2,000 would be 1.5 million. Uh, depending on where, again, you set those variables, um, obviously we could control the dollar amount. Um, we don't necessarily have a good way of giving you an exact, uh, approximate on how many persons might be eligible for those direct payments. For the eviction prevention efforts, uh, we're suggesting $1 to $2 million, uh, in order to sustain those programs for another few years. Housing repair and relocation, 500,000 to 1.5 million; again, you'd be looking at there about 50, uh, household repairs, averaging 10,000 each, to get you, uh, to that number on the low end. About 150 at, uh, $10,000 average grant on the high end there. So that kind of tells you how we developed that specific range. And then the emergency nonprofit assistance at 500,000 to a million, that's about, uh, depending where you're at in that range, one to two times what we did last year, uh, so providing that similar boost that we did with the...with the CARES Act funds. Now again, urn, this...you're looking at this like it's only going to be an Iowa City program. I fully believe that there will be some overlapping priorities when it comes to the County, uh, perhaps with the State too. We've seen the State roll out eviction prevention programs. So just keep in mind that these are initial, that they're meant to be flexible, and as we learn more about other programs that come out, some of these numbers go...may...may drop off completely and, uh, get filled with some other gap, uh, or at least be supplemented, uh, with funds, uh, outside of our control. Moving on the strategic investments, uh, there's a handful here that we'd like to focus on going forward and get your feedback on. Really, uh, number one is the BIPOC and underserved business support infrastructure. We heard a lot about, urn, the need to support, uh, the, uh, underserved businesses, uh, businesses that have had a hard time accessing capital, that had a hard time accessing federal relief programs. Um, we, uh, saw the success at the Diversity Market, and as we talked to those vendors, they said we want this year round. We need a place to showcase what we can do. We need retail space. We'd love to have a commercial kitchen where we can expand our offerings and...and, uh, provide them in an efficient manner. So this would look at that physical space. We have to define what that would be, but really investing in the space that will help these businesses, uh, not only start up, but grow. Um, this could include start-up and expansion grants. Uh, we know that there's an ongoing effort to start a SSMID in the South District. This could This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 12 pilot that for a couple of years to try to prove its value and its worth. And it can also hire temporary staff to kind of manage this project off the ground, uh, as we...as we move forward. Uh, one of the ideas that Rachel mentioned, uh, was a youth entrepreneurial community center type of effort, um, and...and that could certainly be in this category as well. So, again, I just want to be clear on these bullet points. These are kind of examples of...of what can be done. I'm not coming here today, uh, with the answers on exactly how these need to be funded, but wanted to give you a sense of what that next phase of public input would dive into. We would get the people around the table that are invested in this particular item and really allow them to take the lead on planning, and help us understand what it could be that would help, uh, the BIPOC and underserved business community. The second is a social service needs assessment and capital planning, uh, and then some seed funding to go along with that. So this would be a detailed analysis of current services with an eye towards enhancing collaboration and ensuring that we have sufficient capacity in our nonprofit sector, uh, for the coming years. Um, that could be done, I think ideally, on a countywide level and not a citywide level, but, uh, could be, uh, could be done with recommendations formed and then we could set some funding aside to fund those top recommendations, and again, it's really looking at beyond, um, simple what you need today. It's really projecting out those needs in the future, and figuring out how best we can address those as a community. Sometimes it's going to be capital expenditures, might be a...a new facility or an expanded facility, uh, but other times it might just be identifying ways in which nonprofits can work together. So I think this could have, uh, benefits well beyond, uh, informing us how to use ARPA dollars. It could...it could really help the nonprofit community work well together. It could help them in their own fundraising efforts, and certainly as we fund nonprofits through CDBG and Home programs, could help guide those processes in the future as well. The next two are affordable housing initiatives. Uh, I don't think that probably comes as a surprise to the Council, but we heard a lot of need for permanent support of housing projects. I'm very interested in pursuing,uh, community land trust consortiums in the community, uh, to see if we can get something like that off the ground. Uh, strategic acquisition partnerships, uh, this would be really with an eye towards avoiding, uh, sudden displacements and maintaining much needed affordable housing in the community, while at the same time improving living conditions. And, uh, we also heard a lot of calls for financial counseling services and...and helping people achieve home ownership through down payment assistance. Mental health services, uh, we believe that there is some real possibility to bolster the local Mobile Crisis, uh, Service program, which is something that the Council's, uh, focused on a lot over this past year. We think we can make considerable improvements in response time, uh, to that service, which would, uh, enhance reliability, predictability, and help those in need, as well as our, uh, law enforcement, uh, grow in its collaboration with the...with the Mobile Crisis team here. Youth services is something that we would need to dive into a lot, but we heard a lot about investing in youth mental health services, and then also, as Rachel touched upon, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 13 that senior population and fighting that social isolationism. We found some great success right in this building and...and the staff here did an amazing job of reaching out to people that were otherwise not able to, uh...uh, really get out of their home and socialize with anybody. And I think we've seen the power of that, and...and with a little bit investment in...in technology here, we think we can have a...a really meaningful, uh...uh, make a meaningful difference, uh, to our, um...uh, elderly population, particularly those that may be home-bound. Uh, the next piece is workforce development. Uh, the trades and labor organizations, UI, um...uh, Labor Center have some great ideas about, uh, creating some expanded pre-apprenticeship programs for underserved populations. Uh, we are very interested in continuing our efforts to build, uh, the childcare capacity in the community, uh, and specifically the home childcare, uh, opportunities that are here, and then we've heard a lot of calls for, uh, fare-free transit, and while we can't do that long-term, we can use some of these funds, uh, to at least, uh, move us forward in that direction and offer a pilot program, uh, for a...a period of a few years. Uh, there's definite risk to doing that. The Council's been a part of those discussions. It's hard to take those things away once you invest in them, but we certainly have an opportunity to...to, uh, better understand what the impact of a fare-free system would have on people's lives here. Climate resiliency and hazard assessment planning, um, you know we have some of the leading global experts right here in our community that we haven't tapped into and I think there's a real opportunity to partner with the UI Flood Center and...and College of Engineering to really forecast our climate impacts on our infrastructure and our existing land use patterns here in Iowa City, and hopefully throughout Johnson County, so that over the next several decades we can make even more well-informed decisions, uh, when it comes to investing in our infrastructure. Um, I think that would be a, uh, critical step forward for us in addressing the climate crisis that Council declared. The last couple strategic investments are, um, small business, arts, culture, and tourism investments. Uh, there definitely, uh, is a need for continued investment in, uh...um, that employment base. Uh, this is one that I don't think would take a significant amount of ARPA funds because, uh, we think that there will be, uh, likely other programs from the State, uh, that come out to support the business community, but we also know that through this past year, because we've provided some grants, that there are a number of businesses, particularly very small businesses, that did not access federal funds that did not have the expertise and the assistance and the technical capabilities to access those funds, and those gaps still exist, and those are important employers, uh, in our community. Lastly is the public infrastructure and City revenue replacement. I do believe there is some room for this in our ARPA allocations. Again, we would look to take some of that infrastructure cost off the rate payers and forestall any needs for, uh, utility rate increases in the future. So I'm going to summarize that strategic investments. Uh, there's eight of them right there, um, and again, some estimated funding ranges. The BIPOC business support, uh, infrastructure, these are really helping underserved business community get into a position where they can build that, urn, build those businesses up, build that generation This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 14 wealth, uh, that...that is talked about in the Treasury guidance. Uh, because you're talking about physical space here and buying space, uh ,it's going to be a more expensive endeavor. Uh, we've put that estimated range in about four to six million. The social service needs assessment and capital planning, uh, the assessment itself certainly wouldn't be measured in millions of dollars, but we know that the recommendations will likely have, uh, some high price tags on them, particularly if it comes to looking at how nonprofits may collaborate and share space. Um, you can think back to the 1005 project and other collaborative examples in this community that have had a real impact. That's the type of impact that we'd be looking for, uh, with this study and these funds. Affordable housing initiatives, uh, you know, this could be as...as great as you want it to be. Six million does not solve our affordable, uh, challenges in this community, but it certainly—at the high end of this range—could, urn, provide a....a lot of momentum, uh, with some real positive projects there. I won't go through the rest of them, but you'll see they progressively get smaller as you go down. Urn, at the...at the bottom, I'll point out the public infrastructure and City revenue replacement we would look at, about $1 to $3 million there. So, um, when you total all those up on the left-hand column, it's about $15 million, and on the right column it's $32 million. So obviously we're providing you a...a range of funding that goes well beyond our capabilities, but also acknowledges that we have an opportunity to leverage dollars with the funds that we have. So you don't have to think about this just as that 18 million. Hopefully other governmental bodies will identify some of these same priorities, and that's when we really have to...to strike fast and really look for those partnerships. This is a summary of the two slides, urn, together so nothing new on this slide, other than to see them all on one screen. At the very bottom, you'll see that estimated expenditure range. So all the left-hand columns would be about 18 million. So if we did operate in a vacuum and we just wanted to go do our thing, uh, you could fund the left-hand column on all of these. Um, and then on the right- hand column, we're up to 38 million, uh, and...and certainly that could be pushed higher in just about any of these categories but, uh, that's where we landed here. Okay, uh, before we, uh, get it to you for discussion, I want to just do a couple more reminders. Um, I know you're seeing recommendations. I just want to, again, stress that, um, we need to be flexible. Um, we are...we are largely the first out of gate with some of these, uh, recommendations, and you have to expect that things will change. We know the health situation's changing, the economic impact that, uh, COVID is having could certainly evolve, uh, new federal programs, decisions by local governments—all those things. The Treasury's still updating guidance from time to time, so um,just be flexible and know that, uh, it's going to be a fairly fluid process in these early months. And then also, Council should expect that a portion of these funds will go towards grant administration, whether that's the City hiring some folks to make sure that we're able to keep up with federal granting requirements and do the necessary audits, uh, with our sub- recipients, or if we're contracting with, uh, partners to provide services on our behalf, that they are getting administration...administrative dollars to add to their staff team to be able This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 15 to execute on those...on those programs. All right, then that's, uh, you know, we're looking for your direction right now. Um, anything that we talk about, urn, is, you know, still has to come back to you for final approval, so there are no specific programs here. You're not taking any...any hard votes tonight, but we want to know if we're on the right track, and we want to know if...if you are really, uh, hoping to see something that's not on this list, uh, or if there's something on this list that frankly you don't think that needs the, uh, priority level that I've given it here, to let us know and we can continue to...to work with these, but what's really important is once we get your...your buy-in, that we can confidently go to the community and say, okay, now we've got this more detailed level of planning to take place, cause the last thing we want to do is sit down with the nonprofit community and say we think we're going to have probably that four to five, six million, somewhere in there, and then...for that to kind of be taken back, uh, over time. So we need to have some sense of confidence from the Council that these priorities, um, are your priorities, uh, so we can begin that detailed planning. The other thing you'll want to focus on is, uh, what conversations, uh, do you need in order to have that comfort level. If you don't have that comfort level tonight, that's fine, uh,just let staff know what we can do. If it's supplemental information, if it's helping set up a joint meeting with other governments so you can, uh, better understand where they're at in the process, we're happy to do that. So with that, I'm going to leave it on this slide. I know it's a little difficult to see, uh, but Rachel and I will answer any questions, uh, that you have and look forward to your discussions and deliberations. Teague: Thank you, Geoff and Rachel. Lots of information. Um, I know that Councilors do want to respond to this, so...I'll just say jump right on in there...anybody that wants to respond! Salih: I just want to say this is great. I thinks, Geoff, you cover a lot of needs in the community, and this is really, really good (mumbled) to start with. Uh,just my question is, I know that you said many times this just like, you know, is not like finalized and more detail will come, but I want to make sure because in both summary...when you talk about like house (mumbled) uh, like eviction and rent paid, you...you kind of said like only eviction prevention, not like foreclosure...or in both summary, like recommendation emergency relief summary, and as a summary. Is that just like...it happen to be there or...because it did not receive any needs from home owner on the survey? Fruin: Yeah, so in that emergent category, we have eviction prevention. That could certainly be more expansive, and that's something that I think we...as we get into this next round of discussions with...with those that are providing that service and understand the demand better than, you know, I do personally, we...that could be expanded, uh, to include, um, more basic needs, uh, in the community. So it does...it, you know, clearly says eviction prevention here. That would be the main focus, but, uh, that's...easily expandable. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 16 Salih: Yeah, because just from my experience working at the Center for Worker Justice, I been filling out application for a lot people for mortgage (mumbled) for the IFA, for...you know, or for the Shelter House. There is definitely need for like home owners help too, as well, not only renter. I just want to throw that there. Fruin: Yeah, and I think that's where we would really, uh, want to have that conversation with Johnson County General Assistance, as they've expanded that program, to really understand, um, what needs that they're seeing come through there, and obviously the Center for Worker Justice had a program earlier in the year that the City helped fund, that provided more than just rent. It was, you know, whatever that most critical household need was. So we have some examples in the community of how that can work, and I'm confident we could, uh, work through that on this as well. Salih: Yeah...my other comment will be for the Council (laughs) that, yeah, Geoff has (mumbled) affordable housing. If I just add everything for housing, whether it's like housing rent assistant or if I add, uh, you know (mumbled) assistance, plus the affordable housing, it is around four million, and let us talk about this. Really the affordable housing crisis is really, you know, something real in this community and a lot people been suffering from this, all the time. The rent is really increasing right now, and even the people who have Section 8 voucher, they cannot find a house that like have the same, you know, amount of the voucher, because the market price is way high than the voucher that they get from Section 8. You know, this is crisis. We been talking about affordable housing. I been on City Council for four year and almost my term is over, and I don't see real, really like, uh, a solid plan for affordable housing, and 18 million is our opportunity to like really focus on that. We're not going to find another opportunity like this. So if we can...really think about affordable housing and give like more money toward affordable housing, and (mumbled) like lot of opportunity, especially if the County help of, uh, either put more money in affordable housing or fund fully some of the program that we said, for example like if the County decide to fund any of those like program fully funded so we can move that money around, but please, you know, I would like you guys to think about this, take the opportunity. This is our like really excited about opportunity for us to move forward with some solid plan about affordable housing and make that really more money, uh, you know, I want to see like really more money in affordable housing. That what I want to say. Thanks! Mims: I think staff has given us a great start here, and I like the, both the breakdown between the emergent needs and, um, the strategic investments. Um, we need...we need a plan that's going to help us as we go forward and build for the future, um, things in there like the workforce development, the BIPOC business support, I mean as Maz talks about, housing. You know, housing is incredibly important, but people need a way to pay for it This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 17 too. They need to be able to make money, and so increasing that assistance in terms of that workforce development and helping people with bus...starting up and maintaining businesses. Um, I think all of us will look at this and, urn, would like to see more money, but I think also when we think about the fact that this is, we haven't had the real significant conversations yet with the County, urn, and others, where we can hopefully have some overlapping priorities. Um, I think this is a great place to start, and I think, you know, as Geoff has said, we have to have a lot more conversation, um, with the public, with the nonprofits, with the County, other municipalities, urn, as we try to start moving forward and kind of dig into the details here. Bergus: I had a couple questions about scope. Urn,just...as we were talking about the emergent needs and priorities, and a number of them kind of fall within the housing,um, and you had mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, Geoff, the $1.9 million in new..or in relief efforts since, um, kind of the beginning of the pandemic, and those are outlined as well, and a lot of those are I think tying into housing. Do you...do you have a sense...so on the upper end of that, you know, some of this would be the more strategic investment over time and some would be the emergent, if we're talking about housing, but I think, um, the 1.9 of new programs, that money isn't all exhausted yet, right? Fruin: No, it's...it's all been, urn, allocated or...or designated, but it hasn't all been exhausted. So for example, we still have funds in our local eviction prevention program that the Shelter House is administering for us, and we still have the Courthouse eviction prevention program, as...as two examples. And then some of the money, for example, some of the money that we provided some social services last year have funded programs that are ongoing, uh, so, um...uh, while some of those programs have concluded, others are ongoing. So that money is...is still definitely working for us. Bergus: And then we have our $1 million affordable housing allocation the Council's made the last couple of years. What percent of that is for emergent purposes, or what dollar amount? Fruin: It's 5% or 50,000. Bergus: Okay. Thank you. Weiner: Do we have any idea how much remains in the...in...that the State has to disperse for.. for people who have rental and mortgage issues? Fruin: I do not know what the status of the State is. I can say that the...the payments, uh, have started coming in at a...at a faster clip, after a really slow start to that program. Um, we This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 18 are seeing, uh, more trickle in to our water utility, which is how we can kind of monitor that but, um, I don't know what's left in the State. Weiner: And I...I just want to note that one of the other big unknowns, and I think you mentioned it, but is...there are two big bills working their way through in Washington right now. We don't, uh, we don't know what that's going to look like, but both the infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion budget that would include, urn, su...if it makes through...it's going through markups right now. If it makes it through would include, uh, big chunks of money for childcare, urn, paid paren....paid parental leave, community college, urn, broadband, uh, preschool and so forth, and that...those are...those are sort of things that... that we'll know within a couple of months if that's actually going to happen. Thomas: That...that's a good point. This is a very fluid situation in terms of where...where funding could become available. It might, uh, sweeten the pot, shall we say, in terms of what we can and cannot do with the funds that we have. I...I too support the, urn...the basic categories. Uh, I think they provide a pretty...pretty comprehensive framework in which to consider the use of the funds. Urn, I also want to hopefully can keep in mind the, um...(mumbled) the popular themes...that...that Rachel went through, the common themes over the various headings, but I thought there was some really interesting ideas there, uh, that...fell under, could fall under these categories that were presented at the end. Urn, I...I'm, you know, we all probably have our preferences, and...focus points. I certainly think affordable housing, uh, in terms of a strategic need, is...is critical, uh, but in looking at those common themes, questions of youth, urn, certainly are concern of mine. Uh, I also would want to emphasize, and I think it was found there in the themes, uh, the...the use of neighborhood as a way to frame some of these initiatives as well. I...I think there can be a synergy when you place them within a particular place, uh, and I think again the...the...the level at which people struggles varies from place to place in Iowa City. So to the degree we can identify those places where people struggle, perhaps more so than in other neighborhoods, that might provide a way of thinking about how to apply these funds, um, and...and the funds themselves in the different categories, kind of working in concert with one another to advance things more rapidly. Ur...that climate proposal, Geoff, I thought was sort of interesting. We do have an opportunity there to, um...tap into the resources of the University. They're a great partner too in terms of our...our work on this and others. So...yeah, I think it's a great first step, uh, a lot of detail to be worked out. One last thing I would say is alternative funding sources. I know we had talked about a local option sales tax, and I think perhaps with this, you know, funding becoming available, we kind of put that on hold or on a back burner, but... I don't know, I'm just thinking aloud here, but it seems like I wonder if...if thinking about them together might...be a useful exercise, uh...you know, we are the only major city in Io...the state of Iowa, as I recall, that does not have one, and um...you know, for example these public infrastructure projects, you know, that...that is often a common use of a local This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 19 option sales tax. So...urn...maybe that's something to consider anyway, in terms of moving forward. Taylor: I hadn't really thought much about, uh, infrastructure and providing funding for infrastructure. I was leaning more towards, uh, the public interests and helping...helping these folks out there, uh, to prevent them from going even further into poverty, uh, because I think that there seems to be a possible downward trend, that they'll just get further and further in debt if we don't help to get them a little leg up with...with things, and I think I'd like to thank Rachel and Geoff, uh, for helping to kind of consolidate these comments. It's great that we got such a good response and from those people who...who it affects, so, uh, that's good to know, and I think...and I'll be looking at some of those key things as far as housing and rental assistance and, uh, helping to rehabilitate some of the homes that are out there, those kinds of things, and health! Helping them with their health. Weiner: If I could add one thing is I've been grateful to see the...the line item for housing repair/ relocation, because there are...there are such...there's a...there's a...there is housing including especially but not only Forest View that is seriously sub-standard, and where people just shouldn't be...having to live through another winter. Teague: I guess when I look at this, I first say wow...at all the ideas, uh, that have come forth from the public input process. I also, um...am dishearted by a lot of the needs in our community during this time. Um...I guess seeing it all in one space is...is a lot to digest, as the needs, uh, with people, um...from COVID, you know, there's been a lot of, uh, challenges that people have had, but when I do look at the list, I do find hope and...and opportunity, uh, really with the 18 million that we're granted, urn, from the federal government. So thanks to them. There is so many great things about this. When we look at, um, you know, the direct payment to eligible adults. Um, for those that were really excluded, uh, from...the most (laughs) I...I don't know, this is the...probably one of the hardest times in our lifetime when it comes down to a pandemic. I don't know if we'll see another one within our lifetime and the effects that it's had on people, and so, uh, for those that were excluded, I think this is a great opportunity, uh, that we can give to those individuals. I do agree that the housing, um, you know, the...if this was more...um, categorized with everything that falls under housing. A couple of things that I want to look at is what is the short-term, urn, investment opportunities, such as maybe we, urn, pay somebody's rent, you know, to not allow them to be evicted, but I think some of the long-term investments is very important, so we have a balance, um, and that's where your affordable housing plan comes into play, where we are...optimizing our opportunities with this fund to, um, maybe work with other partners, um, to expand our reach within affordable housing. I've said it before, Iowa City is such a desirable place, uh, for people, um, but some people just don't have the opportunity to live inside the city limits This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 20 because the rents are not affordable, as well as the home owners, uh, people who want to be home owners. There is barriers, as we know, and I think this is an opportunity that we can have for those individuals. Um, I think, uh, some direction to City staff might be beneficial, from Council. Um...we know that...I've heard, uh, people talk about partnerships with Johnson County, to see how we can, urn, learn what they're doing and leverage some of our funds or even partner with them to admini...administer some of our funds, um, especially if it's something that's going to be overlapping. We also know that there are things corning from the State, urn, and also from the federal government, uh, that remains to be seen. So I...I don't know what the best process or what...what staff would find helpful, you know, from us today, or have you heard enough? Fruin: Well I...I guess what I would say is our primary focus is going to be on the emergent needs category, to...to get things started. Um, so our next step, if...if we see general concurrence here, which I think we do, is to sit down with the staff at Johnson County and share this with them, let them know that we're interested in this, and then we...we kind of have to let them move their process along, and I think we can do some planning behind the scenes while they move their process along, but ultimately, you know, that decision needs to be made by the Board of Supervisors. So, um, I think we can have those initial conversations with staff. Um, I'd suggest we indicate an openness, not that we have to do it, but to get a joint meeting between the Board and the Council, um, once they get to their decision making process, uh, so that, um...you know, things like Mayor Pro Tem brought up. Okay, is this eviction prevention or can we work together to expand that in some way,just...just see where...where the thoughts align and...uh, where they... where they do, you...you move towards collaboration. Then if there's some divergence there, that's okay too. Um, we start to take some of those things on our own, but I know the County's anxious to, uh, move forward with some emergent items as well. It may be, urn, later in, uh, October before they get to some of their decision making moments, but uh, I think in the meantime, knowing that you're comfortable with those four, we can... we can start to collaborate with their staff and take it as far as we can. Urn, the other items, urn, some will probably take a complete back seat and see no action for a while, just because of our own staff capacity, and others we might start advancing, particularly those that might involve a study component. So like a social service needs assessment process. We may start to have some discussions to flush that out, because we know the first step is going to be a study which may take...you know, eight to 12 months to...to complete, um, so we want to get a little bit of a head start on that. Does that make sense? Teague: I did want to just add, at least for me, the public infrastructure and City revenue replacement, I'm not interested in having that come...be a part of this. Fruin: Okay. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 21 Teague: Personally! Salih: That's the only thing that I missed. I was trying to agree with Pauline (mumbled) this too. I just believe that, you know...we can figure out this. The City always figure out (mumbled) infrastructure and this is being, we been doing this forever. We don't have really that huge problem in the city, uh, you know, maybe next budget this again to help if there is needs right now, but I thinks from this money, we need, uh, you know, try to see what the public interest is and just (mumbled) to it. Mims: I would just suggest that given that this is such a fluid situation, and we don't know how much other money is coming, that we at least leave that in as a placeholder for now, because we might really end up with money that'll help us be on the very high end of these ranges, or even higher depending upon additional money, like Janice just mentioned, urn, so I would certainly encourage (mumbled) this point in time we at least leave that in as a placeholder. Teague:And I don't...I didn't mean to suggest by any means that the...the needs that were shared is, you know, something that we should consider, so I do appreciate, urn, you know, staff bringing that to our attention, so I don't want to make...I want to make sure there is no disrespect, urn, in full knowledge that we do...we have a need, right? We certainly have a need. As far as the placeholder, at least for me, what I know is that (laughs) no matter... 18 million is a lot of money, it still isn't enough money for our...for our city. So I...not to provide false hope, urn, I just, you know, think that we'll have another...enough opportunity to invest other places with the 18 million. Salih: Yeah, I agree. Bergus: I guess I would just say that, urn, I definitely agree with the four emergent, uh, recommendations, and we should maybe just take a moment to acknowledge the only reason we can even be talking about excluding revenue replacement and infrastructure is because of a long history of financial responsibility and reserve policies, thanks to our staff, um, and our consistent decision making over time. So I...personally I don't think we should rule it out, and hope that the...it can be filled, um...through...other federal funding sources that may come forward later, but I think things like...if we think of revenue replacement, right, like the fact that our transit system revenue is down so significantly and we might need to put money towards, um, boosting that to have fare- free. I wouldn't want to exclude that, given that I think that has a really important public benefit, but I think it also would count as potentially revenue replacement. So I just...I think the flexibility piece is really...really important. I also, um, I do think we should ask for a joint meeting with the Board of Supervisors, um, or at least find ways to convey our urgency. As Geoff noted, we're like the first ones I think to kind of be able to come out This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 22 of the gate with these initial thoughts on our prioritization and there's really significant efficiencies to be gained by having the County administer, urn, through the General Assistance program something like the direct payments. I just want to make sure that we're pushing that timeline as aggressively as we possibly can. So whatever we can do to help support that, encourage that, urn, I think we need to be doing. Mims: I would agree. Weiner: I agree with Councilor Bergus, and...and also, I mean, it's...we, as a city, as...as Councilor Bergus was saying, is basically...we're basically in a position that not very many other cities are, including other cities within Johnson County, to be able to say maybe we can probably get along without, um (mumbled) up the City funds, because we have had such responsible stewardship, and so, um, that's where...it's a very fortunate position to be in. Salih: What I have not seen, or maybe I miss it, that I really want to see something about like (mumbled) COVID-19 vaccine to be like really reach out to the immigrant community who are not vaccinated. I don't know how we can do that, but through like number of organizations or anything, but we...we need really to advertise that and to reach out to people, educate them, and encourage them to go and do the vaccine, if we can spend some of the money to like...do like outreach or something like that will be great. I want to see something like that happening. Fruin: Yeah, that certainly would be an eligible use for promotion, incentives. Obviously we didn't include it in our recommendations, uh, doesn't mean that wouldn't be, uh, supportive of it. Uh, the President, uh, had...had put out a call about a month ago for $100 incentive program...local incentive programs to help boost numbers. Um, I guess my feeling on it would be, you know, here locally Public Health is a County operation, and because that's where the staff expertise lies, um, that we would leave that piece to the County, should they want to go down that path, but certainly if you wanted to set aside some funds in the emergent category or put some funds up there for vaccine incentives or marketing, um, we have the ability to transfer money to the County and ask them to help in executing that, um, I...I would probably just wait and see what their priorities are when it comes to the public health matters. Salih: Sure, I just want to say that because we are always the leader and (laughs) mask mandate, we can do this too! Uh, I just believe this will be good opportunity! Taylor: I think along with that, you know, one of the items was the Diversity Market and...and the South District is hoping that we can help them expand that, and I think, uh, that was helpful, and I think they encourage the vaccination at those,uh, at that...at Diversity This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 23 Market, and..and so I think that would be one of the items top on our list is to help them with that. Weiner: I mean I think...I think a vaccination component can be included in a lot of these programs. You know, if you're getting...if you're going to get emergency response, do you have the vaccine? You know, get...come get the vaccine, and I think it will be even more important when they finally roll out, um, vaccines for under 12s. To make sure that there's an opportunity for the kids to get vaccinated as well. Salih: That's true. Teague: I think the business support, urn, is a very...important thing that, um, I think that's a long-term investment, especially when we're talking about the BIPOC business infrastructure. Urn, and so...that is something that I would certainly be interested in, and I think, uh, you know, that smaller amount of four million, I do believe that that is, you know, four to six million is what's there. I think it will take that type of, uh, investment to really make long-term opportunities, um, that really does in the end allow families to have more financial, um, self-sustainabilities. Urn, and really I...I think when we're talking about generational wealth. Salih: I think that's one of the really thing I like in this proposer, you know, is really well done by the staff, uh, and I thinks from the public recommendation, you come out with like four to six million. This is really good because I know there is a lot need for BIPOC businesses, uh, you know, a lot people they would like to open, you know, business...their own businesses but due to like really expensive rent and all this kind of thing, they cannot do that and I...this is really well done ideas and I...I believe, uh, if we can really just come through and even four million, uh, to six million, if the County put like more dollar into it, we can...we can reach the six million, easily! And do that. This is great really. I like it. Weiner: There's some potentially really good partners to bring to the table on that, with some... out of the box ideas and not just...you know, it's great to have businesses that also think sort of incubator and...and youth...and youth center and social...and there's...there are a lot of possibilities, urn...that we could put...that could be put on the table. Taylor: Along with that is the jobs and workforce development and the partnering perhaps with the School District or even Kirkwood Community College, doing that skills training and..and workforce and trade training programs I think is vitally important also to help these people get their feet back on the ground, and...and the young people, to see a future. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 24 Teague: I did want to try to get a timeline as to what Council is thinking as, uh, our follow up, uh, with staff on this item, because...if we're saying by the end of the year, uh, we're already in September. We have one more meeting now. So we have October, November. We know that in December we start to...well, typically we start talking about what our budget, um, individual budget initiatives might, uh, be so staff have some knowledge, but in December we start budget, uh, conversations. Um...a little bit. So... Salih: Especially with (mumbled) idea of one meeting in December, I hear it before, but...unless you guys change your mind, but this is, yeah, we need really to act fast on those kind (both talking) Teague: Yes! Mims: Well it seems to me the first thing is....is, I think Geoff had mentioned trying to set something...set up a joint meeting with (both talking) Teague: Okay! (several talking) Salih: That's a good start. Teague: Okay. Fruin: I believe the County has a, uh, public hearing scheduled in late October, uh, which is when their...public input process, at least this phase of it, will wrap up and then they'll begin some early decision making processes. So maybe that late October, early November time frame is probably...is going to be best, and in the meantime we'll be talking with their staff. Rachel meets with them on a weekly basis, uh, their ARPA team, so, urn, we'll...we'll be as prepared as we can heading into that meeting. Does that sound okay or did you want something sooner? I'm just afraid if we do it sooner, the other elected officials from the County may not...be able to say a whole lot because they haven't concluded their process yet. Salih: I think the County have a public hearing October so...by that time they have, that's their last one I guess, so by that time they will be ready to make a decision. Fruin: Yeah, I think that's late October. Salih: Yeah, late October. And...maybe we just work on the fine details during that time, because right now I really don't know, uh, you ask us on the recommendation like the (mumbled) how much I thinks...let me see...the question was...yeah, you said like balance of the estimate funding allocation. Is that something we have to do now or do it later? And This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 25 also...like given the fact that we....we allocate some money during the summer, last year, and now we keep, the City have allocated a lot money to our residents for rent and, you know, help for utility and rent, but...we gain a lot of experience from that. We saw the challenges, we saw like how a lot people cannot really, uh, easy access those money, what the challenges was, how we can avoid all those challenges next time. So I think we need...that's why we need to...talk about this like when it come to who's eligible, how we can access this money, uh, who should receive this...like, not like who should receive the fund but how much is it and all this fine details. I don't know, is that the staff going to do or the City do or we going to have committee or how you going to do that? Fruin: Well, it may be different for each one. I think for the emergent items, um, my, uh, preference would be to work directly with the County where there is overlap and come to you with very specific recommendations on...on what that looks like, and then allow you to..to make changes to those, um, but you are correct. We've learned a lot. We've had a lot of discussions about, uh, required documentation, self-certification, all those types of things. I have a pretty good feeling on where you all stand on that, um, and uh, again, we just have to sit down with the County and see where their comfort level is and hopefully it lines up, and if not we may have to do a separate program. Salih: That's good...yeah! Bergus: Just in terms of order of operations I think a logistics question that hopefully we could answer before their final public hearing would be if we want to inject this money into the General Assistance program, how quickly can we roll it out? I mean...because it...is there even a possibility for them to administer something that's only for Iowa City residents? I realize that would be very unusual, but I would like to know the answer to that question cause we need to know that in terms of would we want to do something separately. Fruin: Correct. That's exactly what we could be working on in the meantime. Bergus: Thank you. Salih: And (mumbled) Councilor Bergus said, not only just like...yeah, can they do that. Also do they have the necessary like really, uh, you know, translation? How the people who really...how they going to (mumbled) this? Is this like could be in person? Because what they need, all the low-income people, they like in person so they can talk and they can, do they have somebody to translate that? I really think we need to make this really easy for the public to access it. We are not yet to save this money (laughs) we have this money to distribute it to the community. We learn a lot during the pandemic. We...we start needing a lot of challenges we never heard of during that time. So I thinks we need to take all those things that we learn and when we want to give this money to any of the... whether This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 26 is like number of organization, whether it is to the County, we have really to talk about that. Teague: Any other comments...on this topic? Weiner: Just that with respect to the..the one emergent item of housing repair and relocation, I think it would be really helpful for us to have as much granularity on that as well laid out as possible so that...because, you know, a lot...everything that's emergent is emergent. But winter's coming, um, and people...we'll need to find a way to get them assistance quickly. Salih: (mumbled) (laughs) I want to shout out to the staff, really this is great. I really like this proposer, and uh, as I said, it's a very good (mumbled) we can act to it,and when we talk to the County, and we still I think receiving public input too, you know, I just encourage you if you receive like a lot people talking about certain thing that we never had it here, to bring it to our attention, so we can add it. We still have time and we can add (mumbled) Clarification of Agenda Items: Teague:All right! Well, thanks for everybody input here, and thanks to staff again! We are on to the next item, which is clarification of agenda items. This is for the formal agenda. Hearing none, we'll go to Info Packet discussions for August 19th. Information Packet Discussion: Teague: We're going to go to Info Packet August 26`h Bergus: Just would draw people's attention to IP, uh...3 and 4, the, um, 2020 Racial Equity Report Card has some always very interesting statistics, and the Social Justice and Racial Equity Second Quarter report has a lot of information about activities, uh, in the city, um, along...for those programs. Teague: Info Packet September 2". Salih: I think on this one need to talk about the meeting schedule or (mumbled) I don't know (mumbled) Teague: Yeah, we can certainly...so I know that, um...did we want to wait closer to the...to the end of the year? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021. Page 27 Salih: No, for the...where is the meeting? Is it still going to be here, because (both talking) Teague: Okay. Salih: They said this is the last one I think so. Teague: Okay. What are people....what are Councilor's comfort level? Mims: I think we should stay here. Weiner: I agree. Mims: I mean, things have gone worse (several talking) not better. We're back with a mask mandate. Um...it would really, it'd be almost impossible for us to be distanced, and it would even limit more the amount...the number of public that could come in to Council chambers, so...I think we should stay here for now. Weiner: I know it's a burden for staff, but really it's...this is a place where it feels...safe, where we can have face-to-face conversation as well as have the public in. Council Updates on Assigned Boards, Commissions and Committees: Teague: Seem like we have a majority of(several responding) Okay! Anything else? All right, um, Council updates on assigned boards, commissions, and committees. (several talking in background) Hearing nothing, we will be adjourned until our 6:00 PM formal meeting. We will see you in about 30 minutes! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of September 7, 2021.