Good evening and welcome to what promises to be a jam-packed Ames City Council meeting.  A couple of big items on the agenda this evening.

First, something we've spend lot of time talking about the last few days--the proposed installation of cameras on the Clock Tower in Campustown.  The Ames Police Department offers the report at the direction of the council.  A nine block area of Campustown accounted for a notable percentage of crime last year.  It will be interesting to see what restrictions, if any, the council calls for in the use of those cameras.

Also, the council will get a report on the budget for an expansion and renovation of the Ames Public Library.  As it stands right now, the project is over-budget by about $58,000 while pledges are about $400,000 short of a million dollar goal.  People who pledged money to the project have three years to make good on that committment.  Past building projcets have always been done with the total budget's cash-in-hand.  The council will need to decide if they want to scale the projcet back in any way, or begin the work and sign contract without all the funds immediately available.

7:50PM:  We are bogged down in a discussion of the hospital-mdeical zone, and how Mary Greeley Medical Center and McFarland Clinic can play nice with the people in the neighborhood.  I'm struck by how well the meetings seem to have gone, and how little it's going to matter who live in the shadow of both entities.:

9:10PM:  We are finally to the library issue.

9:25PM:  City Manager Steve Schainker tells the council that it will have to make a decision, soon, whether it wants to proceed with the signing of contracts on the library project, even though it doesn't have the $20,058,000 in hand.  Library board of trustees president Kevin Stow tells the council they have received grants, have applied for others, and will continue to raise money.

10:15PM:  Campustown cameras discussion happening now.  City Attorney Doug Marek makes interesing comment about people not having a "reasonable expectation of privacy" while in public.

10:22PM:  Ames Police Chief Chuck Cychosz says video cameras in use during Veishea will help prosecute a serious assault.

10:28PM: Former Ames council member Jim Popken addressing council now.  Takes a very loopy journey from the excitement the cameras pose for a software engineer (like him) to the scary invasion of privacy it poses for a private citizen.