Ottumwa’s City Council members have notebooks full of studies to do. The latest topics include: allowing construction of housing on city park land; two-way traffic downtown; and coming up with some sort of agreement to allow after-hours businesses to operate.

The last topic was on Tuesday night’s council agenda, to discuss a 90-day moratorium on new after-hours businesses. The issue arose following complaints that the Elbow Room downtown was allowing underage people to drink. The owner disputed that charge at last week’s council meeting.

Council members then asked city staff to create an ordinance proposing to regulate after-hours businesses. The moratorium would allow more time to draft a proposed ordinance.

A new issue also popped up at the last council meeting. An Ottumwa Economic Development Corporation Housing Committee suggested that some city park land should be made available for new housing units.

Their reasoning was that living quarters in the $120,000-plus range is inadequate in the city, and with the new Job Corps coming in the next couple of years at Ottumwa Regional Airport, more housing was needed for those staff members.

Shortage of available housing is one of Ottumwa’s biggest needs, the committee said, and one way to alleviate that would be to sell off some park land to allow housing development in areas where future residents may want to live.

A number of smaller companies are coming to Ottumwa, committee members said in their report, and local employers are hiring more workers and expanding operations.

By using part of some park lands, infrastructure would already be available. Areas in Memorial and Wildwood parks were mentioned.

The issue has been a touchy one in years past as several Ottumwans argued against selling any park land, even though Ottumwa has more park land per capita than any city in Iowa.

That’s OK with some residents who want to retain the ambiance park lands bring to the city. Ottumwa Park, for example, is being used more and more, with the addition of a soccer field and possible plans for more ball diamonds and a dog park.

The OEDC committee mentioned other areas, too, where development could take place.

Our concern is that the issue be carefully studied before any proposals are brought before residents. It looks like that will happen, and we certainly encourage it.

We also encourage studying traffic patterns downtown. Changing one-way streets to two-way streets has been proposed by a city businessman, and we’ve said before that the proposal also needs a thorough study.

Ottumwans frequently feel they are left out of the planning process.

Well, now you know at least these three topics are under discussion.