Mason City, Clear Lake leaders head to Washington later this week for annual lobbying trip
MASON CITY — Mason City and Clear Lake community and business leaders are heading to Washington DC later this week as part of an annual trip to meet with federal lawmakers and officials.
17 local leaders representing the cities and Chambers of Commerce of Mason City and Clear Lake, as well as the North Iowa Corridor Economic Development Corporation, Visit Mason City and Main Street Mason City will be able to speak with north-central Iowa’s congressional delegation and other government officials, making sure they understand the priorities of north-central Iowa.
Mason City mayor Bill Schickel says he’s looking forward to the trip. — “No question about it, we have great federal partners and we have great state partners. I have not been to DC since President Trump, the new administration, were elected, so I’m very interested number one, to get the lay of the land, number two, to let them know we’re here, number three, to tell a great Mason City story. We talk about federal resources coming back here, we pay those taxes. Those taxes go out there first, so we want to make sure we get all of them back here.”
Schickel says one big concern with the recent efforts to trim federal spending is the Essential Air Service program which for years has helped provide commercial air service to the Mason City Municipal Airport. “EAS funding is for an airport our size in order to have United fly in and out of there. That is subsidized, and we want to make sure that stays. There’s some rumblings about that that I don’t like.”
The north-central Iowa delegation will be in Washington from Wednesday to Friday this week.
