MASON CITY – The Mason City Council will be discussing the City’s agreement with the North Iowa Landfill tonight.
The discussion will seemingly be centered on the City’s 28E agreement with the landfill, which governs all 29 included communities that the landfill serves.
“It’s payback time,” one political insider told NIT. “They want to protect their power over the landfill, especially after the embarrassment of the CES rejection.” City Administrator Brent Trout did not immediately return an email asking about the meeting.
North Iowa Landfill Director Bill Rowland said today that he wasn’t invited to the meeting, nor was anyone from the executive committee.
Rowland told NIT that the landfill board has discussed changing the weighted vote that gives Mason City a strong hand in the affairs of the landfill. Rowland said that the 28E agreement that governs all 29 communities would have to be amended for that to happen. Each city council or county board would have a vote to approve the new agreement if it is changed. The final tally of votes from those councils and boards would have to equal 75% of 29, or 22 votes, to pass an amended 28E agreement.
In other business, the council will discuss the future of busy one-ways streets in the city. Highway 122 and Delaware and Washington Avenues in particular. The downtown one-ways are figured into the long range plans of the City as possibly changing into two-ways. The Iowa DOT wants to work with the City on a study to gauge the feasibility of turning the one-way portions of Highway 122 into two-ways.
The council will also discuss a Local Option Sales Tax Renewal Committee.
More details to follow after the meeting.