It is expected the council will send the revised Hamilton County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan to a public hearing later this month.

The council will also hear a review of five proposals from the Iowa Mayor’s Design Workshop of 2025.

Tim Zahn, hired in 2019, is the emergency management coordinator for Hamilton County. Working with Mid Iowa Development Association Council of Governments (MIDAS), Zahn directs emergency management plans for the cities of Blairsburg, Ellsworth, Jewell, Kamrar, Randall, Stanhope, Stratford, Webster City, Williams, and unincorporated, rural areas of Hamilton County.

Chapter 29C.9 of the Code of Iowa requires every Iowa county to have an emergency management plan and coordinator.

Support from the City of Webster City and Hamilton County are the first steps in obtaining the approval of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is required for eligibility for emergency relief funding, both federal and state.

Later in the evening, the council will consider five projects completed by Iowa State University students for the 2025 Iowa Mayor’s Design Workshop.

Mayor John Hawkins represented Webster City, which was one of five cities invited to participate in the workshop. Each of the projects, which cover topics as diverse as restoration of Brewer Creek, new residential neighborhoods west of Beach Street, connecting the Brewer Creek and Boone River trails, in addition to design ideas for the Gateway Industrial Park, is capable of transforming the city’s future.

Hawkins asked the workshop’s organizers, ISU Professors Austin Dunn and Sara McMillan to lay out a plan to connect the city’s two recreational trails. Their solution is a tunnel under Superior Street accommodating the stream of Brewer Creek, and an extension of Brewer Creek Trail on its north bank.

The cost of this hasn’t been precisely estimated, but would clearly run into six figures.

The Webster City City Council approved the concept of the Boone River Trail in November 1996, but it wasn’t completed through to Briggs Woods until 2008. The 2.2 mile Brewer Creek Trail runs through Brewer Creek Park, which has been steadily improved since the 1960s.

Funding for both trails came largely from state and local grants and private donations.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 400 Des Moines St., and is open to the public.