On August 15, 2023, the Mason City Council convened at the Mason City Public Library for a 6:00 p.m. worksession to review the Highway 122/Mercy section design and schedule, followed by a 7:00 p.m. regular meeting. Mayor Bill Schickle presided; Councilmembers Lee, Adams, Simmons, and Yesheski were present, and Councilmember Thomas was absent. A quorum was confirmed.
Good evening, everyone. This is the regular meeting of the Mason City City Council. Mayor Bill Schickle. We're delighted to have you with us this evening. Recording in progress. And this is the meeting for August 15th of 2023. The first item of business is the roll call. Diana, would you call the roll? Lee? Present. Adams. Present. Here. Simmons. Present. Councilmember Thomas absent. Let the record reflect that we do have a quorum present. The next item of business is the adoption of the agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda? So we have a motion and a second discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye aye. All those opposed, same sign. Next we'll go to the public hearing. This is your chance to comment on any agenda item. If there's an item on the agenda that you would uh like to speak on, the floor is yours, or if you are tuned in uh online this evening, you can use the raised hand feature. Mayor, no one seeks to be recognized via Zoom. We'll close the public hearing and we'll move to the uh city administrators monthly report. Aaron Ross Powell Thank you, Mayor and Council. Uh as you know, we just had the the work session on the Highway 122 project. Uh great update from WHKS on that Mercy section and then also uh the other DOT projects that are going around are going on and are going to be going on in town and and kind of the schedule on those those uh those projects. The city staff uh presented city staff and several several community leaders, the mayor presented to uh the Iowa Department of Transportation Commission on uh this work on the Mercy corridor on 122 and also the need for continued funding on the 122 uh improvements and and it was well well received. That is uh the second time we've presented on that 122 uh the 122 projects, and I think important that we continue to communicate those investments that the city is making and asking for continued investment from the Iowa Department of Transportation. Um City Staff also had the opportunity to present to uh the Iowa Economic Development Authority on the Iowa Thriving Communities uh designation. Unfortunately, we were not selected for that designation. Twenty uh communities were asked to present for the Iowa Thriving Communities designation out of 37 applicants, uh and those were just recently announced, but we will be meeting with them to get some feedback and hopefully we're able to secure that designation again next year. Uh the upside of that though was the fact that the city was designated with a workforce housing tax credit, so we were able to uh secure funding. Uh while we didn't get the designation, we did get funding. So I I guess uh you know we'll take the funding every time. So that was a great uh step forward for the Dev Partners Project on Delaware. I think that is uh an important. It's important to keep these these projects moving forward, knowing that every year we really need to add you know a hundred plus units. Uh if you look at our housing study, the demand is just uh astronomical, and I think we'll see those units get picked up very quickly when they come online with River Two, and then the federal row home project, and then uh moving forward with the Delaware project with dev partners. Um industrial development, we continue to work with uh the prospects that are interested in the community, the new energy uh freedom project and trying to look at the utility needs of those uh companies and and make sure that we're getting those planned out. We're having a little bit of a difficulty on you know nailing down exactly what the usage is because these companies are still in the early stages, but uh a lot of uh planned investment there. We've seen that in the CIP, and we'll continue to make sure to get that dialed in as we enter in the next uh budget season. And lastly, I just wanted to uh put a plug in for the fact that we have the ribbon cutting tomorrow for uh Birch Drive Scrip Road uh trail. That is incredibly busy, it's a beautiful section of our community and uh exciting step forward in the destination Iowa projects as we continue to close out each step forward in uh in completing that vision. So with that, I'll answer any questions. Thank you.