The Council Bluffs City Council met on December 15, 2025, starting with a study session featuring presentations from the Iowa West Foundation and Advance Southwest Iowa Corporation, followed by a regular meeting with three public hearings, approval of numerous resolutions and an ordinance, and tributes to outgoing Mayor Matt Walsh and Councilman Chris Peterson.
Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. First on the study session agenda is Brenda Mainwaring from the IOS Foundation with the Cycle 3 Grant Awards. Brenda. Good afternoon. This is very old news. The media release actually went out right after Thanksgiving, but this is the first time I've been able to get in to talk to you. And as always, I want to make sure that I get in front of you, let you know what we've been giving awards to, and see if you have any questions. So this cycle was kind of all about basic needs housing and food and diapers and things that people need to be able to take care of for their families. A few things I want to highlight in particular with regard to housing. Our grants included awards to new visions to Habitat for Humanity for both new construction and rehabilitation to the United Way for a new program that addresses potential addresses homelessness before it becomes a problem with in partnership with the school districts. And a new organization called the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which brings training to Council Bluff's organizations that want to get into the supportive housing space, need to know how to do that efficiently and find funding for it. And to in terms of providing food, we added a new provider to Council Bluffs called Saving Grace. They specialize in food recovery, they work with the casinos a lot and with other events to make sure that if people have leftover food, it doesn't go to waste. We also are making our annual contribution to Advanced Southwest Iowa Corp before their operating expenses. They are doing great work, which you'll hear about shortly. And we want to make sure that they're able to continue to do that work in our region to bring in jobs and investment. And then specifically for the city of Council Bluffs. We are once again providing event sponsorship for the city to use for its signature events throughout the year, supporting railroad days, and then we provide a grant to the CBCV, now unleash Council Bluffs, to help them leverage state dollars to bring in in particular sporting events. So those are some of the highlights. Any questions? Any questions from Brenda? Okay, thanks. I just want to thank you for all that the IOS Foundation does for the city of Council Bluffs and Southwest Iowa's people didn't see. There are many small towns throughout Southwest Iowa who got grants for projects that make their community more vibrant and attractive. And there's a long legacy of kindness on your part. So thank you. We're happy to be a part of all the work that the communities in our region are doing. Thanks. Next on the agenda is uh Paula Hazelwood. Don't go up. Good afternoon. And my notes are on here, so sorry while I look down and I get blinder by the day. So reading glasses. Thanks, obviously, for the opportunity to come in and provide you the council with advances. Advance was actually founded in 2013, and I've had the privilege of heading the and leading the organization since 2016. During that time, Advance has evolved significantly from a single focus, one-person operation centered solely on new to market projects to a full service economic development organization with four dedicated employees. Today Advanced serves all communities within Pottawatomie County with a comprehensive approach that includes not only new to market business attraction but also existing business expansion and retention, entrepreneurial development and small business development, site identification and readiness, and most importantly, really intentional trust-based relationship building. The advanced team would not be able to accomplish our shared goal of growing Council Blessed in Pottawatomie County without the strong and consistent support that we've had from city council over the course of I've been in this role, it'll be 10 years next July. As well as your professional staff who are experts in their fields in all of the departments. So I want to make sure I thank them, and I'll probably do it again later because I work with them on a really, really consistent basis. So the support that we receive from the city really does extend far beyond the financial capacity of it. And so myself and my staff are deeply appreciative of the partnership that we have. We really could not do this work without the city. So just some highlights, and these are actually through June 30th. We'll send you our true staff into the year report in your email, like we always do each month. But you'll get the end of the year, probably in the first week of January. So consistently in 2025, between our urban rural and entrepreneurial projects, we've maintained an average of about 40 projects in our active pipeline. This year has been a little bit different than past years. We've worked on a lot of projects, but we've worked, we've landed less projects, but we've worked on much larger projects, if that makes sense.