Tuesday’s City Council meeting started with a few proclamations for the city to recognize certain groups with a day or week in their honor.

The first was a proclamation for a National Hunger and Homelessness Week from November 11 to 19. One of the events for this week will be a Scoop of Soup event, where City Council members will be serving free bowls of soup in the north parking lot at the Hy-Vee Lincoln Center. This will be taking place Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 pm.

The second proclamation was for a recognized Small Business Saturday where Nov. 25 would be known as Small Business Saturday. This is in order to promote local businesses in the Ames area and consumers turning to these small businesses.

The Public Works Department also presented a Citizen Reporting tool for reporting infrastructure related issues in the community.

The tool will not be for emergency issues, however will be for problems which can be resolved in 48 to 72 hours. These issues include, but are not limited to, water and sewer issues, snow and ice, street problems like potholes, stormwater violation, and other complications under City of Ames jurisdiction.

This tool will function like an application, however will not be available through the App Store or Google Play. It will instead be a shortcut to the website – which acts similarly to an app.

The testing phase for the citizen reporting tool will begin in December and will carry through February 2018.

The conversation moved to development issues in downtown Ames, including commercial parking, stormwater regulations, city incentives, as well as public space.

They discussed a potential plaza for public use which could potentially include a portable skating rink.

Following this, The Story County Board of Supervisors requested the City consider partnering in a new housing study for Ames and Story County. This is in effort to identify housing needs throughout Story County which will enable the county to receive grant funds from the Iowa Department of Economic Development.

Story County Supervisor Lauris Olson spoke in response to this saying that this was requested by the Story County Supervisors several months ago, and their request was “lost or something.”

She requested a liason from Story County to serve on Ames’ study, however when asked if she would be willing to hire one, Ann Campbell responded saying “probably not.”

A motion for Timber Creek Acres to begin an Ames Urban Fringe Plan Map amendment was voted on and passed, as well as an agreement with the United Way of Story County in which they will receive $250,000, and a resolution regarding a South Grand Avenue Expansion Grant.

They then held a hearing on a proposed amendment allowing dog grooming for commerical use in Village zoning. This was the first hearing on the matter. They held a motion to continue the hearing on Nov. 28 which passed.

They held two more hearings, one on revising site landscape standards, and another on the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Public Infrastructure Improvements—which had a motion to accept a report of bids, which passed unanimously.

Both ordinances passed unanimously which were amending a section of the Code of Federal Regulations ordinance, and the revision of Chapter 28 regarding Water Science.

The next city council meeting will be held next Tuesday, Nov. 21 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.