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OTTUMWA, IA -- The second part of the Ottumwa Goal Planning Session was held on Thursday evening. The last session was on Feb. 8.

University of Iowa’s Jeff Schott was again the leader of the discussion.  However, Mayor Frank Flanders was not too happy with how Schott led the last meeting.

“I think way too much time was spent last time discussing issues that may not be all that high of priority. And I think the criteria used brought some issues to the top that really shouldn’t have been there that we can’t get done without grant money that we don’t have right now. And it deemphasized issues that are very important to the public,” says Mayor Flanders.

Thursday’s session was more focused on implementation of the items discussed at the last meeting. It was broken into 4 different parts: infrastructure, economic development, quality of life, and other.

There were not as many council members and city department heads as last time, but there were still many discussions.

Repairing streets was a big topic discussed. Simply patching up potholes instead of permanently repairing the street will cost the city more money over a period of time.

It was said that it would cost 8 million dollars a year to catch up in 20 years in regards to repairing all of the streets.

Deciding which streets have priority of being repaired will be the next step in this process.

The next goal planning session will be held in 2 more years, 2014.