Welcome to the council meeting January 20th, 2026.

I will now call the meeting uh Mason City City Council to order.

Clerk, please call the role.

Ms.

Here?

Simmons.

Present.

Latham.

President.

Yesky.

Here.

Adams.

President.

Okay.

Um let the record show that all council members are present.

Is there a motion a second to adopt the agenda with the addition of item nine A.

So move?

Second.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Yes.

Adams.

Yes.

Latham.

Yes.

Simmons.

All right.

Now we'll move on to the public forum.

If you have any comments you would like to make concerning items on the agenda, please come up to the podium, state your name, your address, and the specific uh uh agenda item you're referring to.

Um it's gonna be on number thirteen.

Uh so good evening, everybody.

I understand and appreciate the desire to keep meetings efficient and respectful of everyone's time.

That said, I have concerns about concerns about the proposed changes to the public forum.

In most regular meetings, public participation is already pretty low.

Uh it's not common for large numbers of residents to speak or even be here.

And when meetings do go long, it is usually because of council discussion, not public comment.

Because of that, it's hard to see the amendment as a response to an ongoing problem.

When public turnout is high, it's usually because an issue deeply affects the community.

Those are exactly the moments when residents should be given more opportunity to speak, not less.

A hard one-hour cutoff risk silencing people who took time out of their day to be here in good faith.

I'm also concerned about treating written comments as an equal substitute for speaking in person.

Written comments have value, but they are not the same as being heard directly by the full council and the public.

Uh I respectfully ask the council to reconsider this amendment or revise it to preserve broader public access to public forum.

Thank you.

Thank you, Roger.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Uh just a few updates and then happy to answer uh questions.

Uh first I must uh announce that we were the recipients of a award from the Thousand Friends of Iowa.

We had the opportunity to uh go down and present the project and receive the award for uh uh placemaking that uh was received from them.

This previously the city had received a award for renovated civic spaces uh for the arena.

And so this is the second ward from Thousand Friends of Iowa.

The best development awards recognize uh innovative work in uh renovating existing spaces, placemaking, uh all those things that really build build community, and so uh great honor to be listed with all those other great projects that that were recognized down there.

So um wanted to bring that up.

While down there we had the opportunity to meet with uh our legislators and talk about the upcoming proposals and those that are already out there.

There's two property tax bills that have already been dropped with uh the governor's proposal and the Senate proposal.

Uh a lot of those have there's uh some room for optimism.

There was some recognition of uh some concerns that cities had brought forward about uh potential impacts to service with previous uh proposals that have been put out there.

There's still a lot of problematic provisions.

I think the uh the discussions went really well with our legislators.

They they understand the concerns and will continue to be a resource to try and uh help modify those bills to make them more workable for continued uh service delivery by local governments.

Um with that, obviously uh it is on the walking in on walking in today, you probably realize it's uh brutally cold and snowing.