Jefferson city council members by a unanimous vote at their Jan. 12 regular meeting committed the council to transparency for the coming year. The public will not only have the access to meetings mandate in Iowa’s open meetings law, but access will be provided to remote attendees.
The council accepted a proposal from local business Sebourn Video Services (SVS) to livestream every regular council meeting on two different platforms and to record the meetings for posting on Jefferson Telecom’s public access cable channel.
The city will pay SVS $200 per meeting to record the meeting and post the recording to the public access cable channel. Sebourn uses four cameras; the contract includes editing the raw recording for posting. The city will pay SVS $20 per meeting for setting up Zoom to provide a format in which the public can interact with the council, and another $10 per meeting for simultaneous livestream on Facebook Live and YouTube Live.
The council meets twice each month January through November and once in December, for a total of 25 regular meetings. Total cost for the 25 regular meetings will be $5,750.
The council piloted using SVS six months ago at the suggestion of mayor Matt Gordon.
Council member Darren Jackson called the new agreement with SVS “an investment in more transparent government.”
In another technology-related issue, the city approved purchasing a new Dell computer server at a cost of $5,700 from Computer Concepts of Carroll, as well as another $4,000 in labor to migrate data from the current server and to install the server.
City administrator Mike Palmer told the council the city’s main serve quit working several weeks ago. Computer Concepts was able to repair it remotely as a short-term fix, but it’s outdated.
The cost of the new server will be shared by the city’s general fund and enterprise funds (water, waste water, and others).
The council set the Feb. 9 regular meeting as the date for a public hearing on the maximum property levy.
In 2019, the Iowa legislature set a “soft cap” on property taxes by requiring local governments to take extra steps before approving budgets that include more than a 2 percent increase in property tax revenues. A public hearing must be held and a two-thirds majority vote of the council is required to approve a levy increase greater than 2 percent. An increase less than 2 percent requires a simple majority.
The council held a public hearing Jan. 12 at which no one spoke regarding the sale of property at 204 E. McKinley St. The council then approved sale of the property to Jim and Heather Hagar for $2,000.
The council approved an agreement with Molly Myers Naumann for $500 to amend the city’s historic district to include the city-owned building in the 200 block of N. Wilson Ave. That will allow the city to apply for historic tax credits for work done on the building.
The council approved the mayor’s appointments to council committees as follows:
- Mayor Matt Gordon – Police department, fire department, LEC entity board, animal control, hotel/motel tax revenue and finance
- Pat Zmolek – Mayor pro tem, police, LEC entity board, finance, downtown buildings
- Matt Wetrich – Park and recreation, golf course, recycling, Grow Greene County ex officio member, Bell Tower Community Foundation ex officio member
- Dave Sloan – Streets, Jefferson Matters: a Main Street and Chamber Community ex officio board member, Highway 30 Coalition animal shelter, downtown buildings
- Harry Ahrenholtz – Wage and benefits, housing, Greene County Development Corporation ex officio member, finance, public works
- Darren Jackson – Parks and recreation commission, housing, library board ex officio member, cemetery, animal control
