Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Council Bluffs City Council held a study session followed by a regular meeting on September 28, 2026. Mayor Shudak was absent; the Mayor Pro Tem presided. The study session focused on the Linkages Study, a multimodal transportation planning effort between downtown Council Bluffs and downtown Omaha. The regular meeting included consent agenda items, public hearings, ordinance readings, and resolutions concerning fire supervisory wages, termination of a targeted jobs tax credit, and acceptance of a grant for a downtown planning storefront.
Study session agenda. Kim, do you want to introduce Mark for the linkage of study? Yeah, thank you. First, I want to take a moment to introduce Jim also. Jim Borner with MAPPA was the PM on this project. So thank you to him and Mark Meisinger from FHU. There were some extensive delays on this study due to waiting for a stops modeling. We wanted to make sure we had the most accurate data, but they have both seen it through to the end. Here we are. It would have been on the consent agenda for you to receive and file, but we are waiting on the finer letter solid final letter of acknowledgement from the FTA. So once we have that, I will submit it to the council for receive and file. And also I wanted to mention since Mayor Shudak is not here tonight that she's waiting until the 2050 comp plan is complete before deciding what pieces and parts of this study to implement. So Mark with FHU. Can you press the forward button and see if it'll change real quick? This button. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mark Meisinger, fellas for Oliveig. Do you need to spell my name? No, we're good. Okay. Hello. So as Kim mentioned, we've uh I think it's been two and a half years we've been working on this project. Um I know a number of you have been involved in that, so thank you for being part of the project and being part of our uh community advisory committee. Um let's get right into it. Uh so this was called the linkages study, and that comes from planning and environmental linkages or PEL. Um that is a process that the federal government has that you can go and do basically pre-NEPA, the National Environmental Protection Act. So if you have federal funds, you have to go through and do a bunch of environmental study. This allows you to do some of that work before you get into the NEPA process before it's approved. Um sometimes that's because you're not sure what the project may be or what where the funding might come from, so it allows you to do some of that pre-NEPA work in the planning stages. Um this project was to look at uh safe and efficient multimodal transportation options between downtown council bus and downtown Omaha. Um just say here the results don't obligate you as a city to any future projects. It's up to you at that time to decide what you would want to go forward with, if anything. Um of the slides they're gonna see here are from our public meeting that we had um a few months ago in July. Uh so this is purpose and need. So again, the purpose we just mentioned. Um, some of the project needs were to enhance accessibility and safe travel for those users between downtown Omaha and downtown council bluffs. I want to improve mobility, and then maximize economic development opportunities. So some of the conversations were around, you know, if you have some sort of transit project in council bluffs, you know, how does that how does that improve or or maximize the potential to build new buildings or new developments? Um this is a screening process for that PEL process that I mentioned. Um kind of start on the left side with a lot of alternatives, a lot of options. Um you're trying to identify that purpose and need, what you're trying to do with the project if you've studied it previously, and then go through and look at different evaluation criteria which we developed with our committees, um looking at a range of alternatives, so a lot of different options, and then trying to narrow that down as you go through the process. Um