Envisioning more traffic on Main Street in the future, Ione wants to ensure police cruisers don't need to buck it.

A pair of analysis projects toward those ends appear to be eligible for federal grant funding, city documents show. Together, the studies would cost $70,000.

The town's commercial area on Jackson Street and Main Street would be reviewed with an eye toward a "streetscaping" project that might beef up parking while adding amenities. Amenities in such projects frequently include trees and sidewalk benches.

"Research will show what we can do with money," said City Manager Kim Kerr.

The Ione Police Department within several years will need to move from its current quarters in City Hall, said Chief Michael Johnson. Police cruisers must maneuver out of a sometimes crowded public parking lot onto Main Street at its intersection with Jackson Street. With the city's six officers driving a total of six cruisers, police parking is "horrible" and access to streets is inferior, Johnson said. A grant-funded study would review alternate locations where a new station could be built that would solve a list of problems plaguing the current station house. Johnson said its central location was pretty much its only bright spot.

City Manager Kim Kerr said some chance exists that a future subdivision developer could be persuaded to contribute land for a police station to offset some city fees.

Other police-station problems include a currently less-than-secure location for storage of police property. That's because a couple of regular City Hall-type doors, not specially secured doors, connect the foyer and civilian staff work area with the police department work area. Property at unacceptable risk includes vehicles, weapons and confidential records, according to Johnson. In addition, a confusing situation exists for people on police business, who can find themselves at the regular public-service counter when they are in compromising positions such as being a crime victim or a witness.

"They're exposed," Johnson said.

The city's Old Town Revitalization Plan study would consider residential areas immediately surrounding the two commercial streets, but would not be concerned to specify "blighted" areas either in or near the commercial avenues, Kerr said. The revitalization plan has nothing to do with what is known as "urban redevelopment," which involves taxation, she said.

Rather, a system of "public and private investment" would be pursued to fund improvements.

However, should further research find that either proposed study is ineligible for grant funding, the city might apply for funding of a study on establishing a redevelopment district, Kerr's staff report to the city council states. The study would analyze property conditions and city finances, propose boundaries of a redevelopment district and list potential redevelopment projects.