The Mason City Council met on February 21, 2023, with Mayor Pro Tem presiding and a quorum present. Councilmember Simmons was absent due to the birth of his son. The meeting covered the city administrator's report, consent agenda items, public hearings on the capital improvements plan, maximum property tax dollars, a cemetery storage building, and the Highline Trail project, as well as a second reading of a vacant building registration ordinance. Discussion focused on recycling challenges, state legislative threats to property tax and local option sales tax, and the vacant building ordinance. Several items were approved, with notable pull and separate discussion of items 7 (AFSCME collective bargaining agreement) and 8 (Mason Creek Culvert payment).
February 21st, 2023. First item of business is the roll call. Diana, please call roll. Lee. Present. Yeski. Here. Masan. Here. Toma. Present. Adams. Present. Mayor Shickle is absent. Councilmember Simmons is absent. All right. Let the record reflect there is a quorum. And congratulations to Councilman Simmons and his wife, who had a baby boy, Sebastian William yesterday. So send him a well wish if you're able to. Next we'll adopt the agenda. I'll read through it first. Excuse me, we're gonna adopt the agenda with the exception of number sixteen. That item has been pulled at the request of the developer. So is there a motion and a second to adopt the agenda removing item number sixteen? Second. Motion and second, any uh discussion. All right, please call roll. Yeski? Yes. Toma. Yes. Adams? Yes. Lee. Yes. Motion carries. Uh next items public forum. Uh mayor and city council welcome comments from the public on agenda items during this portion of the meeting. Uh so if you have any comments on anything on the agenda, uh please come to the podium, state your name, address in the agenda item you'll be speaking about, and you'll have five minutes. Anyone seeking to comment via Zoom, please use the raise hand feature. Mayor Pro Tem, no one seeks to be recognized. All right, we'll close the public forum. Item one, City Administrators Monthly Report. Uh City Administrator Airmannette. Thank you. Uh over the last month, a lot of activity uh occurring in several different realms. We've continued to work on implementing the housing grant, uh meeting with partner organizations to uh seek to uh improve the area just west of downtown uh with investments both in owner occupied and rental units in that area. Uh we've got partners such as uh Habitat for Humanity, 43 North, uh some private partners working with CG Public Health and so on. It's uh a great collaboration and and it's some exciting developments occurring there, already a lot of interest from the public in in that grant. Also continuing work on the Destination Iowa grant.