UKIAH 1/17/2017 — From the ice rink to the latest storm, the Ukiah city council meeting on January 18 will be largely seasonal. With a cold front predicted for Wednesday night, the topic of housing is also timely. At 8pm, after the regularly scheduled city council meeting, the council will have a special meeting with the successor agency to the redevelopment agency of the City of Ukiah, about transferring close to three million dollars into a fund for low and moderate income housing projects.
A redevelopment agency (RDA) is a government body that addresses a variety of urban renewal concerns, from blight to infrastructure. Ukiah’s RDA was dissolved in 2012 as part of a state wide dissolution, but the successor agency took over many of its duties. That agency wound down a year later, but it still had $2,752,762 leftover from the 2011 Series B Tax Allocation Housing Bond Issue.
This money could be transferred to the City of Ukiah for affordable housing projects tomorrow.
At the regular city council meeting at 6:00pm, the council will receive an update on the litigation with the Ukiah Valley Sanitation District, as well as a brief recap of developments in the past few months. That matter is scheduled to appear before Judge Peter Ottenweller in the Sonoma County Superior Court on January 26.
Tami Bartolomei, the community services administrator, will also deliver a report about the effects of last week’s storm. Two temporary evacuation centers were set up in Ukiah on January 10, one on either side of the Russian River.
City staff will also deliver a partial report about the ice rink that operated in downtown Ukiah for five weeks in December and January. Numbers of visitors and people employed during the time the ice rink was open are available, but a detailed financial analysis will have to wait until the meeting on February 1. Sponsors of the rink will receive certificates of appreciation on Wednesday evening.
In the consent calendar, which is a block of items considered to be non-controversial, usually approved en masse, the council is asked to approve the purchase of two new police vehicles and a contract to design improvements at the Ukiah city airport.
Sarah Reith [email protected]