Tuesday’s City Council meeting began with a resolution appointing Mike Banasiak as its newest member.

Banasiak, president-elect of the Government of the Student Body, approached his chair wearing a suit and tie, one-upping his fellow council members dressed in office casual attire.

Mayor Ted Tedesco welcomed him and compared Banasiak’s paper placard to the other council members’ engraved placards.

“He isn’t a second-class citizen, he’ll get a real name tag soon,” Tedesco said.

Banasiak will serve as an ex officio, meaning he can express his opinions to the council but will not have a vote. The position was created three weeks ago and is intended to increase communication between the university and the city.

The mayor began the meeting announcing March 26 is Disaster Preparedness Day and at 10:15 a.m. the city sirens will sound for a severe weather test.

In an event unrelated to the Disaster Preparedness Day, Tedesco said residents may hear a series of loud noises coming from the Ames Power Plant Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

“Don’t worry about the weird noises,” he said. “We’re not being attacked or anything like that. The power plant is just finishing up on major maintenance work.”

The dominant topic of the night was a plan entitled the “Southeast Entryway Plan”, which proposed to add an official entryway into Ames from the Interstate 35/Highway 30 interchange.

Jeff Benson, city planner, presented a plan to attract attention toward the city by using light, stone, water and prairie savannah plants to create an official entryway into the city.

“About five million people pass this interchange each year, emphasizing the need for more beautification,” he said.

If passed, a series of light highlighted stone columns would run adjacent to the off-ramp from I-35 to Highway 30.

Benson also proposed placing stone letters on the surface of a lake filling a gravel pit located directly south of Highway 30.

“Wouldn’t it be cool to have large stone letters spelling out “Ames” on the surface of the water,” he said.

Benson also suggested adding prairie savannah plants along the off-ramp to fill the spaces between the stone columns and emphasize the community’s bioeconomy.

The Southeast Entryway Plan was met with approval by members of the Chamber of Commerce who called the plan “a unique effort for beautification.”

“I’d love to have an official entrance to the city,” Chamber of Commerce member Jeff Johnson said. “We need to look like a metropolitan city and an official entrance is necessary.”

The council said more information would be needed before appropriating the necessary $600,000 for the plan.

The next council meeting will be at 7 p.m. on April 8 in Council Chambers of City Hall, 515 Clark Ave.