CHARLES CITY — The Charles City Council at its Wednesday, Nov.14, planning meeting will discuss adding a public transit bus route to Mason City. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in City Hall.

Below is the agenda report to the council from City Administrator Steve Diers:

City transit has now been up and running for just over three months. Over the last several weeks we’ve been discussing the idea of incorporating county service that would add a transit bus to the current operation that would be used to offer service to Mason City. Floyd county would be able to compensate the City and Circle K communications for the added costs via their contributions to NIACOG.

We are currently working on an amendment to the existing agreement that would incorporate the county service in addition to the city service. As you may recall the city is reimbursed by the NIACOG for 50% of the operating deficit of the transit service. The costs for the added route would be fully reimbursed to the City. Additionally, added costs to Circle K will also be fully reimbursed.

We’ve made it to the point where we have a good pool of drivers and have the ability to add hours to the existing pool to cover this added route. Also, it is anticipated that this added bus would be able to cover rides in town when not in route from Charles City to Mason City. This would help out greatly during those times of peak usage when we currently cannot offer local rides. So this addition will benefit all involved.

By Wednesday night meeting time I should have a draft copy of the agreement we look to amend. Assuming this can be approved at the November 19th meeting, the added route could start almost immediately.