Public Input on Capital Improvements Plan (CIP) and Budget

The Ames City Council begins at 5:15 PM Feb 10th. The agenda includes:

Budget wrap-up

Item 1 -- Council Budget Presentations for Arts Funding (COTA), Human Services (ASSET), Public Art and Outside Funding Requests.
Item 2 -- Public Input on Capital Improvements Plan (CIP) and Budget.
- Flood Mitigation-While I have been opposed to this project since council first included it in the CIP 2 years ago, staff added new information to the discussion in the last 2 weeks. It appears there may be a cost savings to the Grand Avenue Extension resulting from the flood mitigation work that could more than offset the local match. The council has the opportunity tonight to wait on the design of the mitigation project until the results of the Grand Avenue savings can be determined. This seems a reasonable course.
- I love this graph. You can see exactly where your dollars go. If you have a $250,000 house take the numbers and multiply them by 2.5 and that is the city portion you pay for that service.

Regular City Council meeting will immediately follow Budget Wrap-Up.

Item 22 -- Staff Report on Developing a Brand Communications Plan. The City of Ames recently underwent a broad community branding process. The next step in that process, once a brand was established, was to communicate the brand. The city council will explore what brand communication plan seems appropriate for Ames.
Item 23 -- Resolution approving Agreement between City of Ames and Xenia Rural Water District concerning continued water service to certain parcels adjacent to ISU Research Park Phase III. This is the 2nd time the community will be experiencing higher development costs due to the risky infrastructure investments of Xenia water.
Item 24 -- Municipal Airport. Staff overview of airport improvements and Resolution approving Airport Improvements Funding Agreement with Iowa State University. The Ames Airport serves a limited number of local residents (there are under 100 aircraft stored there). In addition to serving these 100 owners plus their families and friends, the airport serves as a gateway for possible investors in the community. Local economic investment is a priority of not just of The City of Ames but also of Iowa State University and the Ames economic development community. The deal struck 2 years ago, was that ISU, the local "private sector", anticipated to be the local economic development community and The City of Ames would split the cost of terminal improvements each contributing around $800,000. The new deal shows no clear contribution from the local economic development community. The good news is the project, through some additional commitments by Iowa State University should remain revenue neutral for the city (despite the city covering an additional $900,000 for a total of $1.8 million of its cost). However, the lack of visible support, from the local economic development community, is confusing and a possible cause for concern.
Item 25 -- Resolution approving/motion denying 2015 Urban Revitalization tax abatement requests. This is the formalization of multiple abatements including the Deery Brothers project and The Roosevelt School revitalization project.