Water and Sewer Rates Increase
The Ames City Council begins at 7:00 PM March 10th. The agenda includes:
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Item 2 -- Planning Department Program of Work. The Ames City Council, in addition to its body goals, works to respond to an endless list of requests. On occasion we are forced to take a hard look at all of the work we have thrown staff's way, and to ensure we are still comfortable with it and where it should fit on our priority timeline.
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Item 3 -- Water and Sewer Rates. As the community grows, so do our infrastructure needs. Growth comes with benefits and costs. Utility rate increases are among those costs.
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Item 4 -- One Community. In 2004, due to the VEISHEA disturbances, a Task force was created to understand the underlying causes of such events and to attempt to address them. As a result of the task force's findings, the City of Ames, Iowa State University and The Government of the Student Body formed the One Community Implementation Committee. One element of this committee's recommendations, that was never executed, was the creation of a One Community Commission.
Catastrophe foments a great deal of busyness and bustle; the catharsis of those helpless to change the past is to work assiduously, in the very near present, to impact the future. However, this passion for change wanes over time. Just as the disturbances faded in memory, so did our community's commitment to address the issues that led to them.
In 2014, the Ames community again saw similar events, and this time they nearly killed a young man. The story never changes, and it is not uniquely an Ames story. It is the story of many university communities all over the country.
Ending VEISHEA ends a branding problem for Iowa State University and The City of Ames, but it does nothing to solve the underlying problems of these disturbances. Ending this tradition decreases the likelihood that disturbances will occur in April, but with a good hockey team, football team or basketball team, it has been shown such things can still happen. I am also not sure that the One Community Commission is THE way to prevent more events like this from happening, but I do wonder if doing less, just because symptoms aren't presenting, is venerable. It may be worth more discussion.
Thanks for reading,
Matthew Goodman
City Council At-Large
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