The Mason City City Council met in regular session at 7:00 p.m. on March 19, 2024, in the Mason City Room of the Mason City Public Library. The transcript's roll-call announcement is internally inconsistent: it first listed Councilmembers Simmons and Adams as absent, then stated Councilman Simmons was participating online; later votes record Simmons as present. Councilmember Adams was absent. The council adopted the agenda, heard the city administrator's monthly report, approved the consent agenda with one item pulled, held a public hearing on community development and housing needs, and voted on three ordinances.
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Mason City City Council. This is the meeting for March nineteenth of twenty twenty four. The first item of business is the roll call. Diana, would you call the roll? Lee? Present. Ms. Here. Latham? Here. Yes. Here. Councilmember Simmons and Adams are absent. But the record reflect that we have quorum present and Councilman Simmons is with us online this evening. I'd also like to acknowledge Councilman Yushewski's granddaughter Jessica Yes Yeshewski with us this evening. Welcome, Jessica. We're delighted to have you with us this evening. Jessica works in theater uh in Chicago. Uh the next item of business is the adoption of the agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda? So second. Uh discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign. The motion carries. Next is the public forum. This is your chance to comment on any agenda item. If there is an item on the agenda that you would like to comment on, you can approach the podium, state the number that you would like to comment on, and the floor is yours at this time. Seeing no public comment, we'll close the public hearing and go to the regular consent agenda. We have the minutes followed by the claims, followed by the permits. Do we have the city ministry's report? Excuse me. Yeah. It's the best report you ever had right there. Um council mayor, thank you. Uh we're coming up upon spring here, so much like every year we've we have quite a few programs that start to ramp up as we get into warmer weather. Uh some of those being golf, the rec programs, opening of the shelters, and and so many other activities that uh support amenities for the for the public. Uh this year we were able to open up the golf course quite a bit early. Uh and there was a lot of activity already out there. As you know from going through the budget, when we get an early open on the golf course, it's uh it's really good for the finances of the golf course to get open like that. So I think that's uh a really positive thing to uh to be able to do that. Additionally, uh a lot of development projects in the works, continuing to work through uh those uh proposals with the North Iowa corridor and uh and recruit those businesses. One of the exciting announcements I think we had uh since I last gave you a report was the uh receipt of a community funding uh community project funding from Congresswoman Henson's office through the appropriations bill. Uh that was a million dollars that'll actually go towards those development uh that development that we see out in the industrial park that'll help fund the uh TAF water main loop that goes out there, which will provide a much needed utility and providing higher water capacity out to the industrial park. Many of the businesses that we seek to recruit are heavy water users, and so having that utility out there is is valuable. So very appreciative to Congresswoman Henson's office and the work that uh she put forward with uh securing that funding for us. Uh additionally, we're continuing to work through bids on quite a few projects.