Iowa City Council will resume meeting in City Hall next month

IOWA CITY — The Iowa City Council will resume holding its meetings at City Hall next month.

The April 19 meeting will be the council’s first meeting at Emma Harvat Hall at City Hall in more than two years.

The council began holding its meetings online in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In July 2021, the city announced the return of in-person meetings. The council has been meeting at the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center — instead of at City Hall — because the center has more space for social distancing.

Moving back to council chambers will free up needed space for Senior Center programming, City Clerk Kellie Fruehling said in a memo to the council.

Mayor Bruce Teague on Tuesday also brought up the decrease of COVID-19 cases in the community, as well as the council now offering hybrid meetings.

The city started holding hybrid council meetings in January, giving residents an opportunity to participate in public comment virtually. The hybrid option will remain when the council resumes meeting at City Hall.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now lists Johnson County as having “low” community transmission. The city last month lifted its mask order and civil emergency declaration in line with new guidance from the CDC.

Sam Jarvis, community health division manager at Johnson County Public Health, presented a COVID-19 update at the start of council’s formal meeting Tuesday.

Jarvis said the county is doing “far better than what it was at the beginning of the year.” Johnson County Public Health has seen fewer than 50 cases reported in the past seven days, with some days having case reports in single digits, he added.

“We have not seen this kind of lower transmission since, I believe, June and July of 2021 before we saw the rise of a delta variant and the most recent omicron variant,” Jarvis said.

The council’s next meeting April 5 still will be held at the Senior Center because the agenda and location had already been announced.

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