The City of Hiawatha strives to find methods to increase our government’s transparency and be more open to the public in our daily practices. The Mayor, City Council and staff work hard to be crystal clear to the public of their actions. We do this in several ways with our City website being our primary source for information. Through our newly redesigned website we provide easy access to government records, featuring notices to upcoming city council meetings with detailed agendas and from those meetings provide readable minutes. Council packets, strategic plan and capital improvement plan are accessible on our website by clicking on the Government tab/City Council/City Council Documents link on the right hand side of page. By clicking on the Departments tab/Policy and Admin citizens can access our annual audit and request public records by emailing your request to the City Clerk or City Administrator. Most recently you will find a “Stay Current” section at the bottom of all website pages. Click on the “Get Alerts” button to be the first to know about snow emergencies, projects, leaf pick up, deadlines, events, announcements and more! You can subscribe to both email and text alerts. An additional way to stay connected to the latest City information is by liking our City of Hiawatha, Iowa Facebook page.
The other avenues we use to keep citizens informed is through our Hiawatha Insights monthly newsletter containing information on our infrastructure projects, upcoming events and much more. Our council meetings are held every first and third Wednesday of each month at 5:30 PM. These meetings are are open to the public. Our council meetings are also recorded and can be viewed on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month on Mediacom Channel 18 at 7:00 PM or ImOn Channel 4 from 6:00-7:30 PM. Lastly, our doors are always open along with easy access to mayor, council and staff with online access to emails and phone numbers. We welcome your questions, comments and participation. Our city hall hours are from 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM, Monday – Friday or by appointment.
Transparency is a process. We understand transparency promotes accountability and provides opportunities for our residents to be better informed about what is going on in our community. As technology improves and funding becomes available, we will open up new avenues to help connect the public to our government records and finances. We encourage you to visit our city’s website.