Roll Call by Matt Rasmussen, Board Administrator Board Chairperson Dennis Plautz was absent; all other Board Members were present.

Transcription

1 State of Iowa City Development Board Meeting Minutes of April 12, 2017 Iowa Economic Development Authority 200 East Grand Avenue, 2 nd Floor Main Conference Room Des Moines, Iowa Call to order 1:00 p.m. Present Jim Halverson, Board Vice Chairperson Barbara Brown Jay Howe Sarah Beatty Absent Dennis Plautz, Board Chairperson Others Present Matt Rasmussen, Administrator, City Development Board Betty Hessing, Administrative Assistant, City Development Board Matthew Oetker, Iowa Department of Justice Eric Jensen, Planning & Building Director, City of Ankeny Eric Carstens, Planning Administrator, City of Ankeny Derek Silverthorn, Planner, City of Ankeny Kesha Billings, Planner, City of Marion Frank Smith, Attorney, City of Altoona John Shaw, Community Development Director, City of Altoona Chad Quick, Planner, City of Altoona John Marek, Former Mayor, Former City of Mount Union Joelle Marek, Citizen, Former City of Mount Union Shelly Barber, Henry County Auditor, Mt. Pleasant* Sean Yolish, Aureon* *Participated via teleconference Introduction by Vice Chairperson, Jim Halverson Roll Call by Matt Rasmussen, Board Administrator Board Chairperson Dennis Plautz was absent; all other Board Members were present. Request for amendments to agenda Motion by Jay Howe Motion I move to approve the agenda as printed. Second Sarah Beatty Voice Vote All ayes. Motion approved.

2 Consideration of March 8, 2017, business meeting minutes Motion by Barbara Brown Motion I move the minutes of March 8, 2017, be approved as printed and distributed. Second Sarah Beatty Voice Vote All ayes. Motion approved. New Business UA17-06 Marion Matt Rasmussen stated that Marion has a 100% voluntary annexation petition, including acres of consenting property and 7.31 acres of County road rightof-way, for a total annexation area of acres. Once annexed into the City of Marion, the two northern properties included in this petition are anticipated to be zoned in accordance with the Comp Land Use Map as I-2, General Industrial, to allow for the expansion of Marion's Public Service operations. The three southern properties are anticipated to be zoned A-1, Rural Restricted, until future development potential warrants further zoning amendments. City services are currently installed in a number of locations surrounding the properties to be annexed. Owners can continue to use private septic systems and private water wells until such time as it poses a health hazard or warrants a connection to the public sanitary sewer system as required by Linn County Ordinances or other State or Federal law and/or regulation or is requested by the owner. The City of Marion s Public Service Department already provides maintenance and snow plowing for the portion of 44th Street that is being annexed into the City. The proposed annexation area is not subject to a moratorium agreement and the packet appears to be complete and properly filed. Motion by Motion Second Roll Call UA17-07 Ankeny Kesha Billings, Planner for the City of Marion, was present to explain further and answer questions of the Board. Barbara Brown I move the Board find UA17-06 as complete and properly filed and in the public interest and that it be approved. Jay Howe All ayes. Motion approved. Matt Rasmussen explained that Ankeny filed a 100% voluntary annexation. The subject area is zoned Agricultural District on the Polk County Zoning Map and is identified as Agricultural on the Polk County Future Land Use Map. This annexation area is not currently identified 2

3 in the 2010 Ankeny Comprehensive Plan. The proposed land uses are Low Density Residential and Medium Density Residential land use designations. Approximately 30 acres would be Low Density and 12 acres as Medium Density Residential subject to change based on the platting and further development. It s 42 total acres. All streets, alleys, boulevards, sewers, water service and other public utilities located within the proposed annexed area will be installed at the sole expense of the developer. There is an existing 30" trunk sewer located along NE 54th Street that is intended to extend north/northwest along Four Mile Creek, which would serve the annexed area. There is a 12" water main at the intersection of North Ankeny Boulevard (Hwy. 69) and NE 54th Street that could be extended north to serve the annexed area. This annexation is not subject to a moratorium agreement. This annexation is subject to and in compliance with an annexation agreement between the City of Ankeny and the City of Alleman. Mr. Rasmussen reported that this packet appears to be complete and properly filed. Motion by Motion Second Roll Call NC17-08 Altoona Eric Jensen, Planning & Building Director with the City of Ankeny, was present to explain further and answer questions from the Board. Eric Jensen stated that Ankeny s Comprehensive Plan has been amended to include this area. Sarah Beatty I move the Board find UA17-07 as complete and properly filed and in the public interest and that it be approved. Barbara Brown All ayes. Motion approved. Matt Rasmussen explained this is an 80/20 annexation for the City of Altoona. Altoona seeks approval for the voluntary annexation of a tract of land adjacent to the City on its east consisting of acres including public road right-of-way of acres. Exclusive of the public road right-of-way, the annexation consists of acres of which acres are owned by property owners who consent to the annexation and acres (10.35%) are owned by non-consenting property owners whose land is included in the annexation to make more uniform boundaries. The reasons for the annexation are that Altoona has a need for developable residential land and Altoona has planned for this annexation. It is in accord with 3

4 Smart Planning Principles that are integrated into Altoona's 2014 Comprehensive Plan and Altoona has the fiscal and physical capability of providing substantial municipal services to the annexation territory. Altoona presently provides no municipal services to the annexation territory, but Altoona does have water, via a 16 inch main, at the southwest corner of the annexation territory and a sewer, via 12 inch main, to the southeast corner of the annexation territory. Altoona has the capability of providing substantial municipal services to the annexation territory which includes wastewater, water, law enforcement, fire and EMS, public works, building, zoning, engineering, planning and related services, library, parks and recreation. There are no urban services agreements, 28E agreements or annexation moratorium agreements that involve the annexation territory. Mr. Rasmussen reported to the Board that the packet appears to be complete and properly filed. Frank Smith, Attorney representing the City of Altoona, requested the Board set this matter for public hearing at the next meeting. Vice Chairperson Halverson stated he would not be attending next month s meeting, so that would mean that approval for Altoona s annexation would require all four of the other Board members to vote yes (4/5 s requirement for approval of 80/20 s). Mr. Smith consulted with his client and it was decided that as long as there is a fourmember quorum available, Altoona is fine with taking the matter up at the next meeting. After discussion, it was tentatively scheduled to hold the public hearing at 1:30 p.m. on May 10, 2017, at Iowa Economic Development Authority and making it available via telephonic for Board members who cannot attend in-person. Vice Chairperson Halverson asked if anyone else had a comment or question regarding Altoona s proposed annexation. Sean Yolish with Aureon participated via telephone. He joined the call to represent Aureon s interest. We lease land immediately to the east of the proposed annexation that is part of Aureon s fiber network infrastructure throughout the State. Mr. Yolish wanted to make sure that the plot that has been targeted for annexation is limited to those acres referenced. If it would expand is 4

5 the only time I would have any concern. Motion by Motion Second Roll Call Staff Reports Vice Chairperson Halverson replied that it would be restricted only to the area identified in their application. Mr. Yolish stated he would join the public hearing via telephone on the 10 th just to be sure, and as long as it stays that way, we re fine. Vice Chairperson Halverson thanked Mr. Yolish for calling-in. Jay Howe I move the Board find NC17-08 as complete and properly filed and that a date for public hearing be scheduled. Barbara Brown All ayes. Motion approved. Public Hearing was scheduled for May 10, 2017, at 1:30 p.m., at IEDA. Matt Rasmussen reported he didn t expect a heavy agenda for the May 10, 2017, City Development Board meeting. Proposed petitions coming include 100% voluntaries from Sheldahl and Dubuque. We also received an involuntary severance from parties that are currently in the City of Marshalltown. Betty Hessing and Matt Rasmussen will go over that thoroughly. Matt Rasmussen stated he doesn t think it is complete at this point, but that may be coming to the Board either in May or June. Matt Rasmussen updated the Board on the status of the discontinued City of Mount Union s finances. He distributed a sheet entitled Mount Union s Financial Overview as of April 12, 2017, which is attached to these minutes. The City Development Board also received a letter from Dan Johnson, a resident and former Mayor of Mount Union, which Betty Hessing gave to each Board member. It s regarding the financial situation of Mount Union and is also attached to these minutes. Matt Rasmussen explained he s been in contact with the Henry County Auditor and she s been in communication with the Henry County Board of Supervisors. Henry County is not interested in taking over this property when it s all said and done. Mr. Oetker and Mr. Rasmussen have discussed and think we should dispose of property sooner than later. Mr. Rasmussen stated that he has received phone calls from residents and they want to keep the park. Ultimately, when it s all said and done and there is enough money to pay for all the other claims, the property will revert to the County. The County does not want the park and do not want to be responsible for the insurance and the up-keep of it. If there is a group of folks who want to keep that park, they could possibly 5

6 work an agreement out with the County. Matthew Oetker stated that if we do have a situation of our claims exceeding the amount of liquid assets they have, the Board would be doing a disservice to the citizens by not liquidating the assets in order to pay the debts. Matt Rasmussen explained the paid-to-date claims and the expected claims are outlined on the Mount Union Financial Overview sheet attached. One of the claims was from the Mount Union Benefited Fire Department and Barbara Brown asked what that meant. Shelly Barber, Henry County Auditor participating via telephone, stated the Benefited Fire District is the district that Mount Union falls in. They are their own taxing body. They levy the tax for the residents of Mount Union and part of the township out around it that s within the district and that s how their fire protection is paid for. Matt Rasmussen thanked Ms. Barber for information. John Marek, former Mayor of the former City of Mount Union, was present in Des Moines and stated he could explain this bill in full detail and answer any questions. Each year, the City receives a bill from the Benefited Fire District. They are their own taxing body, however, the City of Mount Union worked out with the fire district is that they took the total value of land value and taxed as if it is one entity. The City of Mount Union collected those taxes and then we would in turn, twice a year, pay the fee, which in this case would be $1,428. The City has paid the fire bill through June 30, This is a future bill for the coverage beginning July 1, As I explained to the people, as we dissolve, more than likely that will be put back onto the taxes on their individual properties and would not be a bill for the City of Mount Union because we would not be in existence. Barbara Brown asked if the fire department is its own taxing authority and how they decide who they are going to cover. Mr. Marek replied they are their own taxing authority, are assigned a district and are housed in the City they cover. They submit their own budget; they report to the Iowa finance folks and their budget is submitted to the County as well. They taxed the properties of Mount Union as one entity at $2.3M as the value and they apply their tax rate and the City would pay that, which is approximately $1,300 to $1,400 per year. We split it in two payments for the ease of our budget purposes. Barbara Brown asked if they were volunteer or career fire fighters and Mr. Marek replied they are all 6

7 volunteer. Mr. Marek stated they do very little fire service, but more EMS. They have approximately 12 to 17 individuals that respond. Again, they don t just support Mount Union, they also support within the County as well as provide back-up for Winfield, New London and surrounding areas. They also work with the Henry County Emergency Management Board and are very plugged-into the community. Matthew Oetker asked if the real property that was not disposed of was still insured the community building, the park, etc. Mr. Marek replied it was not insured. At the March 8, 2017, City Development Board meeting Mr. Marek provided a notice to the Board from the insurance company. Mr. Oetker stated the Board is to be taking control of the property and it needs to be insured. Board members agreed. We have never had a discontinuance situation like this. Previously, we ve worked with the cities so they liquidated all their assets before they get to this stage. It has not happened this time, so now we have real property. Matthew Oetker asked Mr. Marek where the truck is located and Mr. Marek replied the truck is in the maintenance building those locations of all real properties were given in the packet last month. Matthew Oetker stated he s working with the Iowa Department of Administrative Services (IDAS) they have a master contractor, an auctioneer who we can probably use to try and dispose of the vehicle if the Board is so inclined. The IDAS/General Services and its enterprise generally take care of real property for the Executive Branch in State Government. They thought they could provide some assistance, although they suggested the Board contact the IDOT. Evidently, they have mechanisms in place to dispose of real property. We will have to use some sort of authority and figure out insurance and things such as that. Vice Chairperson Halverson asked if the Board needed to give Mr. Oetker some discretion so that we get the property insured. Is that something that needs to come from us? Mr. Oetker replied that when the Board took action last month, it gave staff the discretion to carry-out the discontinuance process. Matt Rasmussen stated we have never disposed of property before. Vice Chairperson Halverson stated not so much disposal, just that these are public facilities and if someone were to get injured and they are not insured....matthew Oetker stated the State of Iowa is self-insured we do not purchase insurance for us. I just don t know about this, because this is not State of Iowa property and it s not 7

8 automatically county property. Vice Chairperson Halverson stated his understanding was that whatever assets remain, it diverted to the County. Mr. Oetker stated that The Iowa Code just says funds. All records go to County Auditor and all remaining balances shall be deposited in the County Treasurer. Matt Rasmussen stated he would presume that we would need to dispose of the property and liquidate these physical assets and use those to pay the claims and if there is money left-over when it s all said and done, that would revert to the County. Matthew Oetker stated that all this must be done compliant with the State s procurement and disposal. Matt Rasmussen explained to the Board that the strategy we are using on this is we re excepting claims and he s received two formal claims to date. One is from the Mount Union Benefited Fire Department and the other is from the former City Clerk. Matt Rasmussen has been working closely with the Henry County Auditor, Shelly Barber, and he s been contacted by other folks regarding expected claims they are going to submit. Matt has a grasp of who s going to be submitting a claim, he just doesn t have firm dollar amounts at this point. Matthew Oetker stated that the letter from Dan Johnson suggests there are two lawsuits that have evidently gone to judgement against the City. Mr. Oetker asked John Marek if he knew what these two things are about. Matt Rasmussen replied he thought that was regarding RUSS. John Marek stated that was correct. The City still owes approximately $4,000 on a judgement to RUSS. The only other lawsuit that Mr. Marek was aware of was the one filed before we unincorporated the defamation lawsuit. Mr. Marek stated they had liquidated as many nonessential assets as they could before the disincorporation so they would have the funds to pay off the bills that we had known at that point in time. We hung onto the snow plows for essential operations, as the County did not confirm to us that they would take care of roads at that time. Mr. Marek explained the park has been maintained by volunteers. They have asked me to ask you if they can continue to do so. Barbara Brown replied that at this time, the park and all other assets are uninsured, so do we need to block off the truck, the building, the park and the lot with the shed, until they are insured. Matthew Oetker stated we don t have a process in place to do that. We have the statutory authority to take control of city property and then effectuate the discontinuance procedures. Again, our statute has never contemplated 8

9 something like this, especially with the six-month timeframe. We also have publication requirements; we have procurement requirements to insure there is no collusion and things like that, of assets. We have worked with cities even cities who have gone to election before and this hasn t been an issue. I wouldn t know how to acquire insurance to be quite honest and Matt Rasmussen stated he wouldn t either. I don t represent local government. We have mechanisms in-place to dispose the State disposes of assets we could rely on those contracts to dispose of some of this property. Barbara Brown suggested putting a sign-up saying, Use at your own risk, which may be worse than just leaving it alone. Matt Rasmussen asked Matthew Oetker if there was anything we could do to stop somebody from maintaining the park, mowing the park or even using the park. Matthew Oetker stated he represented the City Development Board and he didn t know anything about municipal property. Mr. Rasmussen asked if the Board would be at risk as the entity that has control of that property. Matthew Oetker stated we should discuss this after meeting. Matthew Oetker stated that after the Board s motion last month, it gave staff the discretion to work on windingdown processes. I would say that if we re looking at selling assets, disposing of assets, once we have the processes in-place, we would come back to the Board and explain what those processes are and seek a motion. At this point, I think we re still at the information stage. Matt Rasmussen stated, Correct me if I m wrong. This is how we will proceed we ll continue to investigate the process for disposal of the property, potentially insuring the property, and continue to except claims and report to the Board. Probably if we have processes in-place, have an action item on the agenda for the Board to approve something formally. Matthew Oetker stated we do have this letter from Dan Johnson suggesting that, at least in his mind, the claims against the City are going to exceed the assets and if that s the case, at the end of this process, we re going to have to figure out what to do then. That s something else the Board has never been required to do. Matt Rasmussen stated from his review and what he gathers from the finances, I m not sure if that s the case. I think the largest debt of all these is RUSS. They ve got a loan of $270,000, which I think can be assessed to the tax payers and there is an arrearage that can be specially assessed to those that are in arrears. There is a $6,000 amount or so of people who had leased property that they don t think they can get recouped through a special assessment so ultimately, the 9

10 RUSS dollars and don t hold me to this but I think that might be $6,000 or so. I guess the long and short of it is, I m not sure if there will be enough money to cover the debts at this point. Obviously, it s a little early in the stage. I think there may be. Now without disposing of the property, I don t know. Barbara Brown stated that if someone wants to use this community center, which I assume people do periodically, does that mean there is a closed sign on the door until we figure that out. Matt Rasmussen stated he didn t imagine there was a closed sign... it s locked-up. Mr. Marek stated it s locked-up. I still have the key to it. I have not turned it over to the County yet. We have a meeting with the County tonight where I ll turn those over. I ve been working on the inventories of the properties, which is completed. I ll be turning that over to the County. When someone wants to use the building, they ve called one of our Council members who is responsible for receiving that. We have told them that we don t do reservations anymore, that the City no longer operates the building. I just make sure that we don t get a bunch of bugs in there or that it s not broken into. We ve received all city property from Council members, if they had any, such as binders and such. There has never been a closed sign and it s as by needed and we ve just been informing people that the building is no longer in use at this time. Barbara Brown asked if the County wanted that building and Matt Rasmussen replied they didn t want any of it. Mr. Marek said the County has been non-responsive in all measures during this process, so we don t expect any assistance. Matthew Oetker stated we ve had a situation in the past where we ve had real property and the County has agreed, so when the County agrees, we can adhere.... I don t know if there is any mechanism to compel the County to do anything. Shelly Barber, the Henry County Auditor, stated the Board of Supervisors, in making the statement, it s not that they haven t responded we were always under the understanding that it went to the City Development Board and it needed to be sold to take care of the debts that was there, then if it comes back to us, we probably would then sell at that time. But, it was our understanding that this was not our obligation at this time. I called to make sure we didn t need to have insurance on these buildings and the park. I believe there is an Easter Egg Hunt scheduled for this weekend and I thought about that and I was told it was not our responsibility. It s not that the County doesn t want anything to do with it, but we re not 10

11 in the business of owning property; our goal is to get property back on the tax rolls and not hold a bunch of property as the Board of Supervisors or Henry County. Barbara Brown thanked Ms. Barber for the information. Matt Rasmussen told Shelly Barber he would give her a call after the meeting. Vice Chairperson Halverson stated it didn t seem like an action needed to be taken by the Board at this point. Matt Rasmussen stated he just wanted to give the Board an update on where we were. Obviously, we re early in the process. I need to receive several claims and hopefully, we won t go down to the end of the six-month period before we receive all claims. I have a pretty good grasp of what I expect the claims to be. I ve had communication with several of these folks, if not all of them. We will proceed, as we discussed earlier, and when we need the Board s decision, we ll put that on the agenda as an action item hopefully next month. Vice Chairperson Halverson stated he is a little concerned about the status of the property.... it almost appears to be in purgatory, for lack of a better term. My concern is, even though we don t have a responsible entity, if those facilities are used, who is ultimately responsible if an injury were to occur. We have no means of policing it. I would really try to expedite that effort. Mr. Rasmussen agreed. Future Meeting & Public Hearing May 10, 2017, at 1:00 p.m., City Development Board Business Meeting at IEDA, 200 E. Grand Ave., 2 nd Floor Main Conference Room, Des Moines, Iowa. May 10, 2017, at 1:30 p.m., Altoona (NC17-08) Public Hearing at IEDA, 200 E. Grand Ave., 2 nd Floor Main Conference Room, Des Moines, Iowa. Adjourn 1:50 p.m. Respectfully Submitted, Betty Hessing, Administrative Assistant 11