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The Watertown City Council is holding a work session Dec. 9 at 5:30 at City Hall to workshop a number of items and take care of a few points of business in an off-week meeting.
The council is expected to cover their priority projects and long-term capital budget planning for large projects such as the proposed centralized Street Department facility. This is essentially a long-term roadmap of what projects the council and city will be budgeting for in the future.
The council will also review and discuss the updated Bramble Park Zoo Operational Plan for the next five years.
In the wake of the zoo losing its American Zoological Association accreditation a few months ago, the zoo has updated its long-term plan on how they will operate without it and how they will go about fixing the sticking points the AZA had with the zoo so they can regain their accreditation.
The third item the council will discuss is the master list of engineering design standards the city and its contractors must abide by.
The list, which is updated every few years to reflect new building codes and state laws, was brought up for approval at the Dec. 2 meeting of the council, but due to a few sticking points with the council, it was tabled for further discussion.
The list affects things such as street widths, setbacks, right of ways, drainage, sidewalks and more.
The council will also be authorizing a special payment of $66,500 to Mack Landscaping for the 2024 park sign project. The project is installing new signs at every city park with the city’s new logo, replacing signs that date back to the 60s in some places.
The council will also authorize the city to apply for an economic development grant in the amount of $2.5 million from the Economic Development Agency for the Watertown Development Company. The grant is intended to be used to install infrastructure in undeveloped portions of Calvin Industrial Park.
The full meeting agenda can be found here.
