UPDATE: Urbandale Votes to Proceed With $1.8 Million on Park Shelter House

UPDATE 5/16: The Urbandale City Council voted Tuesday evening to seek bids for a new shelter house and tornado shelter in Walker-Johnston Park.

Councilman Tom Gayman, who has opposed the project on the basis of its estimated $1.8 million cost, was the only no vote.

City Council watcher John Hollenbrands, who regularly attends city council and school board meetings, also spoke against the project, according to DesMoinesRegister.com.

Fourteen people voted yesterday afternoon in our Patch Poll below. Ten favored the project.

WHAT WE WROTE ORIGINALLY

Urbandale City Council members will vote tonight on whether to take bids to build a new shelter house in that would cost the city about $1 million.

According to information provided by City Manager A.J. Johnson, the city will be getting a $1.8 million tornado shelter and community center for about $1 million.

About 42 percent of the cost is being covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state of Iowa. Urbandale will receive up $668,178 from FEMA and the state will pay $89,900 into the project, he wrote.

Johnson is asking the council for permission to seek construction bid for the shelter, which now is estimated at $1.8 million, up from the $1.6 million earlier estimate.

Should the city spend $1 million on a park shelter? Vote in our poll below and give the council your opinion in the comments boxes.

The shelter house has been controversial because of its cost. City has consistently voted against it for that reason. But city officials say they have been able to leverage the city's goals for an affordable new shelter house with the federal program to build tornado shelters.

Architecttold the City Council previously that the shelter could be started this summer and finished by next spring.

When the city began discussing expanding the building project to capture the FEMA money, a small found that readers narrowly disapproved of the project. 

Vote in our poll below and give the council your opinion in the comments boxes.