By Brent Trout, City Administrator of Mason City, Iowa –
Dear Mayor and City Council Members,
Air Choice One enplaned 732 passengers and deplaned 706 passengers this month making it a better month than last month for service. The Airport received an inspection from the FAA regarding their operations and they found no discrepancies in the inspection. The Airport has now had 10 years of discrepancy free inspections and we are now the airport with the longest yearly streak of discrepancy free inspections in the state of Iowa.
The Blue Zones Project was excited to host Dan Burden in Mason City on August 3rd as he provided training to staff and Active Living and Transportation Commission Members. The Power 9 Committee has changed to a monthly meeting to increase the amount of work devoted to developing initiatives and moving them forward for implementation. The reviewed and modified City Code for Mason City was sent to Sterling Codifiers to develop a draft for our review. Once staff has reviewed the code and had Sterling Codifiers change areas not done correctly it will be sent to the City Council for your review. We will then do a work session to discuss the areas that are modified in detail to ensure understanding of the code.
Development Services approved a new CoRL loans for Grawmondbecks Competition Engines at 3709 South Federal Avenue and it is presented for council approval at the August 16th Council meeting. The NHANS house continues to make progress on the rehabilitation with an expected completion date of September 1st. The TJ Maxx store is advertising that they will be having a grand opening on August 21,2016. The City issued three new permits for residential construction and 40 permits for addition/remodel.
The Engineering Department reports that the pavement marking project is complete with a punch list being developed for the final painting. The 19th Street SE project is wrapping up with punch list items determined and all clean up to be completed by around August 12th. The Notice ofIntent for the Quiet Zone was prepared and sent on July 21, 2016. The Engineering Department will be finalizing the plans and specifications in preparation for a Diagnostic Team Field Exam from the Federal Railroad Administration. The Water Department is back to full staff entering into August and they are beginning to start the process again of installing replacement meters.
The first step of the financial transparency project went active at the end of July and the operating budget should be online by August 30th. It has been received very well with multiple hits on the Facebook story that was posted. Human Resources Department coordinated the interview process for the Fire Chief in July and celebrated the retirement of wastewater operator Jerry Ginder. There were two work comp claims this month and they did not result in any lost work days.
The City Electrician had another very busy month working on various projects in multiple locations. His position is very important in completing basic maintenance projects at less cost to the City over contracted labor. The list of projects completed is in the report under Operations and Maintenance activities.
