July Council Meeting Summary

Fellow U-Heights residents,

City council held their regular July meeting tonight. Here are a few highlights:

Sunset Street Wide Sidewalk Project

City Engineer Josiah Bilskemper caught the ire of several residents regarding progress on the wide sidewalk. He did a nice job of explaining the current status and process going forward. Here is a summary of comments he made during the engineering report:
There has been slow progress the last three weeks.  This project is a 45 working day contract.  The contractors  are 60% through the contract. Utility poles have now been all re-located. Last week the city engineer made an official request  to DOT and the contractor for a new construction schedule.  If the project is not completed  in the allotted time, the penalty for not meeting the construction deadline is $1K dollars per day. Construction of the retaining wall at Sunset and Benton is scheduled to begin tomorrow, July 10.

Financial History

Jim Lane and zoning commission chair Pat Bauer met with city accountant Steve Kuhl to gather information regarding city finances over the past 10 years. Bauer presented those statistics to council, and then gave additional statistics that he had put together himself. We only received a hard copy of that tonight but it  will be included on the City's Finance Department Page eventually.

One University Place

Council talked about where to go from here. It would appear that council will hold several community-wide meetings to gather information from residents about amenities to include in future development. Developer Jeff Maxwell spoke to council and reaffirmed his commitment to developing a high quality project. He also  asked council for their vision of what would be acceptable.

For more information about the entire meeting, view the PDF of the Agenda and attached materials.

This would be a meeting that I would strongly encourage people to watch, as my summary doesn't do it justice. The web stream will likely be available late this week or early next. See all U-Heights meetings HERE. (Click on the blue "Government" tab and pull to "University Heights City Council." Remember council meetings are also broadcast every Thursday at 9:00 PM on Iowa City cable channel 4.

I also post more interesting articles and observations here:  UHForward.

It is a great honor to serve as your city councilor, if you have any questions or comments I look forward to hearing from you.

-Mike Haverkamp

 315 Golfview Ave.