Mason City council sets hearing for budget amendment on downtown hotel grant

MASON CITY — The City Council in Mason City Tuesday night set a public hearing date to amend the city’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget as part of a grant connected to the hotel portion of the River City Renaissance project.

The city’s finance director Brent Hinson in a memo to the council stated that as the city prepares for the closing on the hotel property by MCCCH, LLC and the issuance of the grant, the Fiscal Year 2024 budget needed to be amended to allow for that payment.

Councilman Paul Adams, who appeared on the “Ask the Mayor” program on KGLO earlier today, says it was a line item in the Fiscal Year 2023 budget that needed to be moved to this fiscal year.   “We had it in the budget to be paid out last year, and obviously that didn’t happen because it hadn’t moved forward yet. I think we are getting closer and closer each day that passes. The public hearing on the amendment will be at our next meeting. That just moves the payment of the hotel grant out to this budget year and hopefully we’ll get a little more action on that very, very soon.”

The public hearing for the budget amendment is scheduled for the council’s September 19th meeting. A final amendment is also being worked on regarding the development agreement to place the new Hyatt Place hotel in the eastern portion of the Southbridge Mall parking lot.

To hear more comments by Adams from today’s “Ask the Mayor” program, head to the audio player below to listen or download