Ames Iowa Councilperson Jim Popken

Hello All
 
The City of Ames is sponsoring  "Ames, Be Cool". Conserving natural resources and helping the environment are great goals, but sometimes it’s hard to know what to do.  As the City of Ames continues to promote its EcoSmart programming and reduce its own carbon footprint, here’s an opportunity to learn more about how Ames residents can help. As part of the Ames City Council’s goals to promote environmental sustainability, the City of Ames, along with the Ames Community School District, is sponsoring "Ames, Be Cool," an educational forum from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, September 27.  Lunch is provided at no charge. See more info about  "Ames, Be Cool".
 
This council meeting starts at 5:30. The agenda includes:

Hello all

This council meeting has one item on the agenda that will generate significant discussion. This item is to change the LUPP to allow growth to the north. North being defined as the land to the north and west of Ada Haydan. See the map below.

The council has been dealing with this subject for the last 3 months or so (see my April 1st comments and my May 12th comments). At the May 12th meeting the council, on a simple motion, directed the staff to draft a change to the LUPP to include the north. The vote was 3 to 3 with the Mayor breaking the tie. I voted against the inclusion of the northern land at that time. The change has come back to the council and is in the form of a resolution. The Mayor is not allowed to break a tie when the council is voting on a resolution.

 This action would allow homes to be built around the edge of Ada Hayden Park to the north and west.

There is a light summer agenda for the city council meeting this week. A more interesting meeting may be at the county level (Ames citizens are also citizens of Story County). I recieved a:

NOTICE OF PUBLIC WORKSESSION
STORY COUNTY
PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION
Lincoln Highway Special Corridor Study Story County, lowa

This is a development plan for the land bounded by Highway 30 and the first road north of the old Lincoln Highway in Story County (see map, Ames is located on the far left). The final draft of plan  looks interesting. I have not completely read it all yet. I will try to attend the public meeting on Monday.

The Ames City Council regular meeting starts at 7:00. Tuesday's agenda includes:

The regular meeting starts at 7:00. Tuesday's agenda includes:

Council starts at 6:30 P.M. on Tuesday with a joint meeting of the Electric Utility Operations Review & Advisory Board (EUORAB) for a review of Demand-Side Management for 2008/09. Demand-Side Management is the city's power program for saving energy by increasing efficiencies. The basis for much of this program comes from a 2006 study "Demand Side Management Evaluation". This study is very good. I believe demand side management (energy efficiency) is the best way and least expensive way the city can address future energy needs. 

The second item with EUROAB is the discussion of power supply options (see last page for staff recommendations). The options being considered include the city purchasing capacity and energy from the proposed Alliant Energy coal plant in Marshalltown, wind/renewable/biofuels, and aggressive demand side management. The direction the city takes will have an impact on the city's energy cost and the city's CO2 production. I am in favor of increasing the city's use of wind power in combination with combustion turbine generators for reliability and aggressive demand side management. For more background see "2008 Power Study" and my comments about the April 22nd meeting.

 Council starts at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday with a report from the Inclusive Community Task Force.  I thank all the members of the task force for their input and effort.

The regular meeting starts at 7:00. Tuesday's agenda includes:

First a reminder of a meeting tonight:

Ames Electric Services is asking Ames residents to attend a meeting, listen to a presentation about power supply options, ask questions, and provide feedback about future plans for providing electricity to the community. A public input session is scheduled from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, April 21 at the City Council Chambers, City Hall, 515 Clark Ave.

The Ames city staff is projecting a 55% increase in the Ames Utility generating capacity needs for the next 17 years. This is an average increase of over 3.1 % per year.

The city will be setting direction based the consultants report and your (the public) input. If the city increases generating capacity; will it be with coal, nuclear (outside purchase), wind, solar, or bio-renewables? How does the city's carbon reduction goals fit into this plan? Can future demand be met by demand side management (end user efficiency) programs?

These questions have yet to be answered and your input is valuable. So please attend tonight to help set the city's direction on power needs and carbon reduction goals. The consultants report is available at http://jimpopken.org/doc/city/Power/PowerStudy2008/

There is a correction to my last email. In relation to the growth areas in the city, I published a table which indicated the number of students in each area. That table should have been labeled as the number of housing units in each area. The city did not make any projection of school age children. However there is correlation between students and housing (just not one to one). Sorry for the error.

This meeting is a council workshop on Targeted Growth Strategy (see aggenda) . The staff report on the relative cost of growth has a lot of good information in it. Please consider reviewing it. There are currently residental development proposals for the North (area around Ada Hayden), Northwest (onion creek) and the Southwest of Ames (see map below). All these areas have different cost impacts on the city and thus the citizens (tax payers).