The meeting included a study session and regular session covering the approval of a development agreement assignment, discussion of hunting regulations and homeless shelter ordinance, and approval of several resolutions and ordinances. Public testimony addressed safety concerns regarding urban hunting and support for the hotel development agreement assignment.
Good afternoon. Um we are going to review the agenda. Um does the council have any questions regarding the consent agenda. If not, how about public hearings? Yeah, I had question on this. I asked Brenda, you can come up with it. The city should be out of it too, right? If they're selling the property, but I I guess it goes to the developer, right? Um it actually was not for the hotel, it was to help supplement the cost of the field. That's right. It just go ahead, Brenda. Yeah, uh kind of just to bring everybody up to speed. Only a couple people were here when this whole thing was put together. So 2016 development agreement. Um, I think as I understand it, there were a lot of community meetings about how to reinvigorate the Mac. There was a decision that something had to happen with a retail spine, that a full service hotel was an important addition to activate the Mac, and that something athletic, which ended up being the field house, would really boost that area. And so Iowa West committed to making the investment. Um it was about 40 million dollars all in for the investment for all three of those. Was a development agreement between the city of Council Bluffs and Iowa West that Iowa West would make the investment, and essentially using funds that otherwise would have been used for the benefit of the community. This was clearly for the benefit of the community, but unlike a TIFF with a private entity, the agreement was that the city would TIF and that Iowa West would commit any income from the TIFF and hotel motel taxes back to the community. So essentially, if we were going to invest funds that otherwise would have been used for the benefit of grants to the community, we put those into a development agreement, then we could regain whatever was possible through the normal TIFF process, put it into an account which would be reserved and replenish that ability to grant back to the community. So the money that we have received for our investment in all three of those properties, and they all have different structures, the money we've received is kept in a separate account and allocated specifically for projects that benefit council bluffs. So unlike a typical TIF where the city does an agreement to incentivize a private developer, developer who needs a higher profit margin, this is essentially the city saying, hey, if Iowa West will use some of its resources now to do these things, then the money that can come back off of that investment can be reinvested in the community later. And that's essentially what we've been doing. So I wasn't there. But I can say in the five years I've been here, the money that we are are getting back from the TIFF and the hotel motel, we talk about that a lot when we're talking about investing in the city. As we continue to pay off these relatively large debts, it's very helpful to have the the extra money coming into a protected account where we know that is reserved for the the community to use. That partnership did not work out very well. Um we terminated that partnership in 24, and since then have been trying to kind of get the hotel into a a good enough condition where it is marketable and can be sold, which was our original intent, because we don't do hotels, we do foundation work, and we want to get back to the business that we do, being able to pay back that investment that 40. We will we will never get anywhere near 40 million dollars worth of investment, and that was never the intent. But having some money back into our accounts that we can then send back out to the community has been extremely beneficial for us and for the community. I think you and I were probably the only ones up here at that time that I remember when we did the TIF, and it was it's nice that it was the first time we had done that, where it's specific monies collected would come back to council bus, whereas if we didn't do that, that money could have been to Southwest Iowa to Nebraska, different places. Whereas if we didn't do that, that money could have been to Southwest Iowa to Nebraska, different places. So I do remember doing that. That was important. I so if you sell the property, you will continue as the developer of the even though it's already fully developed, the hotel in person, like the hotel itself, I guess. So that's my understanding of typically what a typical TIFF is. If somebody's gonna step forward at the at the initial point and say, okay, we're in for the 40 million to make sure that this works, but until we're gonna take back as much as we can of that investment in order to recoup what we what we donated in advance. I think that's kind of typical that when a TIFF obligation is made to a developer, the developer receives that regardless of what happens because it was a developer who made the initial investment. I could be all wrong on that, but that's how I understand it. So now it will be taxable with the sale, right? Different than the nonprofit. No, it was always taxable because it's an income earning. That's why it's TIFF because it's taxable. The field house is mostly um not for profit use and not taxable, and so obviously the TIFF on that is different virtually nothing. Yeah. So you'll continue to collect the TIFF going to the same fund. Absolutely. And the developer or the new owners will just operate the hotel. Exactly.