The Ames City Council begins at 5:30 PM July 28th with Special Meeting of the Ames Conference Board. The Regular City Council Meeting will immediately follow.  The agenda includes items:

• 40. Motion directing staff regarding entrepreneurship workshop. Council has requested a report on an entrepreneurship workshop. Often times Ames economic development focuses on development industry incentives (meaning only those businesses creating work for the construction industry benefit). Other progressive communities are working towards extending incentives beyond those businesses that have access to large amounts of capital for construction and development.  This workshop will explore some ways in which other communities encourage entrepreneurship regardless of construction needs.

• 41. Resolution authorizing execution of Settlement Agreement pertaining to Breckenridge v. City. The Breckenridge settlement could bring an end to a long-standing stalemate on this issue. Unfortunately, the contract puts the city on the hook for any legal fees if a breach of contract suit is filed against us. If all actions, specified in the contract, are not taken in the near future, no matter the information received in that time, a breach of contract suit could be filed against the City of Ames. There would be no insurance protection for that litigation, even if the suit were frivolous. Additionally this means that public input received on these issues between now and then will, to a large extent, be based on avoiding such a breach, rather than the land use issues at hand. Settlements are crafted in a vacuum. Eliminating the possibility, that public input in the forthcoming steps could change those perspectives, developed in isolation from the minds of the community, is risky. In a way it turns the agreement into a workaround of the super majority required by law for rezoning, by creating an additional reason to support the rezoning, i.e. avoidance of one more lawsuit. While I support the compromise in general, I find the contract, as currently written, risky and feel it undervalues community input along the way.

• 42. Update on Indoor Aquatics Center. The Municipal Pool is requiring large investments annually to operate, as it is very old. Current it is used for City of Ames activities, such as residential lap swimming, parks and recreation instructional activities. In addition it is used for Ames Community School District (ACSD) competitive activities as well as the Ames Cyclone Aquatics Club. While there is an opportunity for the City of Ames and the ACSD to partner on this facility, the uses may be different enough such that the most responsible use of community resources would be to house the uses separately. Tonight the council is considering hiring a consultant to explore the City of Ames' capital and operational costs of a City of Ames recreational facility. The ACSD has already been doing the same on their competitive project.

• 43. Motion directing staff to initiate Annexation of 5500-240th Street. The Land Use Policy Plan has deemed the southwest as a growth area for a long time. Finally, there is a request to annex this area into the City of Ames. As this area has been determined to be a more affordable location to provide city services than any other location in Ames, annexation would seem a great choice.

• 44. Staff Update on Developers Agreement for Dayton Park LLC in TIF District on South Bell Avenue. Hunziker Companies have failed to meet the obligations of the TIF park development agreement, on South Bell for a third time. While there have always been reasons provided for the contract breach, and this time those reasons seem to be frustrating to Hunziker as well as the City of Ames, it again brings in to questions, how seriously will developers take commitments made to the City of Ames, if there are no substantial consequences. Hunziker Development, sent a letter to council suggesting they pay the lost revenue to the city of the minimum assessment outlined in the contract, an amount equal to $11.340. Historically the smallest building built in this area would have yielded twice this value. This conversation should be interesting.

• 46. Resolution approving FAA Grant for Airport Terminal Building project site work. I call shenanigans.

• 51. Hearing on rezoning of properties at 519, 525, and 601 6th Street from Residential Medium Density (RM) with Single-Family Conservation Overlay District (O-SFC) to Residential Medium Density (RM). This change could be a great partnership in achieving some new affordable housing in the City of Ames

Thanks for reading

Matthew Goodman

Ames City Council At-Large

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