The Mason City City Council held its regular meeting on June 6, 2023 at 7:00 PM in the Mason City Public Library. The meeting included a proclamation, a major presentation on the Water Reclamation Facility nutrient reduction project, approval of a consent agenda, separate action on workforce housing tax credits and a trail project, public hearings on zoning changes and property conveyances, and adoption of salary adjustments for council and mayor.
And good evening, everyone. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Mason City City Council. We're delighted to have you with us this evening. I'm Mayor Bill Schickle, and this is the meeting for June 6, 2023. The first order of business is the roll call. Pam, would you call the roll? Simmons. Present. Lee? Present. Here. Adams. Present. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum with all members present. Next item of business is the adoption of the agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda? So motion and a second discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. The motion carries. Next we have two special presentations. First, it's a great honor to be able to declare Jefferson Highway Day in Mason City, and we have two representatives from the Jefferson Highway Association with us this evening. We have John Fishbeck and Lindsay James. Would both of you please step forward at this time. And whereas Mason City and other communities on the Jefferson Highway route, which approximates uh Highway 65, north and south through uh Iowa and the rest of the country, and uh we believe this will enhance tourism and when we offer greater awareness uh of the Jefferson Highway. And we're as a special day recognizing the Jefferson Highway would help to bring tourism and recognize the historic importance of uh this highway through Mason City and the state of Iowa and the rest of the country. Now therefore I Bill Schickle by virtue of the authority given to me at the City of Mason City do be hereby proclaim June tenth, twenty twenty-three as drive the Jefferson Highway Day in Mason City and call upon the people of Mason City to explore this historic highway and to begin to learn more about its importance in our local state and national history, and I look forward to spending more time on the back roads of the Jefferson Highway in the near future. Can we uh show our appreciation to the great uh people from the Jefferson Highway Association, and next we have a uh presentation on the uh nutrient reduction uh strategy and uh Aaron, I'll make let you make the introduction here. Yeah, we've got WHKS uh and Bill Angerman to here to present on uh the nutrient reduction strategy. Obviously, this has been a talking point for many years, predates me. Uh the nutrient reduction strategy uh is an important action to help reduce the nutrients that are flowing into the Gulf of Mexico and uh the point source uh issues that we face with the plant, and we've been challenged by the DNR to uh to help reduce that loading. Uh with that, there's a large price tag that comes along with that, but there's also a plan of action to make sure that we're able to achieve those those goals in the long term uh with our permit. And with that, I'll turn it over to somebody who knows a lot more about this than me. So thank you. Thank you, Erin. Uh thank you, Marin Council. Uh good evening. As Aaron said, my name is Bill Angerman, and uh uh tonight uh we're gonna run through a pretty quick presentation and uh we're gonna talk about the nutrient reduction strategy, then you have a couple other agenda items uh later on uh that'll be the next steps. So just a little background, we're gonna jump right to the executive summary. So back in 2017, uh the city was given a compliance schedule, and you had uh 10 years to come up with a plan with how you could meet uh the nutrient reduction uh strategy imposed by the state. And at that time, what you said was we are just coming off in a big project in 2008. Uh our plant was in really good shape, it's been well maintained by our staff. We've done a good job keeping it up to date. Uh we really wanted to delay this project as long as we could. So in 2018, the city council set um uh chain of events uh or started a chain of events that would culminate in the city building a new facility or really upgrading or expanding their facility, uh culminating in 2017 to meet that compliance schedule. So you've done a really good job of of I think uh you know, spending your money wisely. You've over the last 10 years, uh I'm sorry, over the last five years and all the way back to 2008. You've said how do we get the most amount of life out of the thing out of the improvements we've made to that plant. Uh second item, facility plan.