[0:03] Jared Wallick, Chief.

[0:04] Thank you, Mayor.

[0:06] Mayor and council, so this is

[0:08] our annual presentation, just

[0:11] kind of talk a little bit about

[0:13] some of the goings on

[0:15] in the fire department and

[0:17] some of the things that are happening.

[0:20] Um, typical to the to the

[0:22] other years, we're going to

[0:25] talk about calls, we're going to talk about kind of the general

[0:28] um generalities of of what goes on over there.

[0:32] So as you remember in Dakota ordinances,

[0:35] uh the fire department is established to prevent and

[0:39] extinguish fires, protect lives and property against fires,

[0:42] to promote fire prevention and fire safety.

[0:45] A lot of fire stuff, right?

[0:48] Uh then there's a caveat at the end.

[0:49] And to answer all emergency calls for which there is no other

[0:52] established agency.

[0:55] So that is kind of the the thing that drives the fire department

[0:58] is is that last statement because

[1:01] in reality, when people don't know who to call, uh they call

[1:04] us to try to help solve a problem.

[1:08] And so we take that very seriously. We are very service-oriented.

[1:11] Uh we go above and beyond to make sure that we try to solve people's

[1:14] problems on a daily basis.

[1:19] Um, our mission statement, I'm not going to read all of these.

[1:22] I just I include them all in in most of the presentations that

[1:25] we do, um because it does drive what we do.

[1:28] There are times, one of the things that you'll see in there is um

[1:31] utilizing the highest professional standard and actually our people

[1:36] even come back and they quote our mission statement when we're talking

[1:40] about different projects and different pieces of equipment.

[1:44] Different things that we're looking at adding to the department.

[1:48] And they'll use that because the highest professional standard is

[1:50] a high standard. Right?

[1:54] Uh it's not just the minimums. And our people believe that

[1:57] and our people bring that up up to us repeatedly.

[2:01] And so one of the things that we have is our vision statement is

[2:04] we provide connected care through consistent service.

[2:07] And I'm a firm believer that uh a trust relationship is required

[2:10] of your city in order for our people to provide the services

[2:13] that we provide.

[2:15] We're going into people's homes in a day that they're very vulnerable.

[2:19] And so they have to trust 100% that those people coming through

[2:22] the door are the ones that are going to help not only solve their

[2:26] problems, but they're going to treat them with respect and dignity.

[2:29] And I think our people do an excellent job and they display

[2:32] this daily.

[2:35] Um, our value statement is the same as as the city's. Uh the

[2:38] council adopted these a number of years ago and and we've

[2:42] maintained those as well. Uh we define them for our people and

[2:45] make sure that they understand uh what we're expecting out of them.

[2:49] So our organization, uh the

[2:52] chart that we use to kind of take a look at it.

[2:54] Uh we are currently staffed. We have uh my position, I have an

[2:57] assistant chief position who basically is the assistant chief of operations,

[3:02] he runs that that division.

[3:06] Uh he was new to this uh position in March. He has done an excellent

[3:09] job. Uh his focus or his drive to run operations is through

[3:13] training.

[3:18] And so he's doing an excellent job to provide a consistent platform

[3:21] for training.

[3:22] And that's a big deal in the fire service.

[3:25] We have three different crews and a lot of times three different

[3:28] crews will do things slightly different.

[3:31] Consistency is a big one for me, that's one of my major values.

[3:35] I want to make sure that it doesn't matter whether it's A-shift that's

[3:38] on duty, B-shift or C-shift, doesn't matter. Uh when we come

[3:41] through the door, the way we tackle things, the way we handle things

[3:44] is consistent. Okay?

[3:48] Uh and we are staffed, so with a fire chief and assistant chief,

[3:51] and then we have a fire marshall.

[3:53] Currently the fire marshall is assigned to shift work. Uh we've

[3:57] been running a little bit short of paramedics and engineers.

[4:01] Uh our fire marshall is both of those.

[4:03] And so he has been reassigned to shift uh in the short term.

[4:08] We're a little bit unsure, a little unclear as to when that's going to

[4:12] change. Uh but he has been working shift work.

[4:16] Uh then we have three shifts and our three shifts, A, B, and C.

[4:20] Uh one, one is staffed at eight people. So there's a captain

[4:23] and seven firefighters.

[4:26] The other two shifts, A and B, have a captain and six firefighters.

[4:33] Um, years of service, you I'd pass this out in uh in the um

[4:37] handouts that I'd sent out last week. Uh so you can kind of look

[4:40] through that.

[4:42] Uh there are uh quite a list of people, right? We have 27 total

[4:45] staff, that includes our two office staff.

[4:50] Um varying in ranges from almost zero uh experience up to uh

[4:55] Mike Browning currently has 17

[4:59] 0.9 years.

[5:03] Mike Browning is actually

[5:04] looking at retiring. I'll talk

[5:05] about that in just a, just a minute here.

[5:07] but, um, once he retires,

[5:09] uh, I'll be the next one in line on the seniority list.

[5:12] with a little over 15 years.

[5:15] And so, we are a young department,

[5:18] which has shifted over the years.

[5:20] Uh, but a very good department.

[5:24] Uh, we do have one, uh, volunteer,

[5:26] our Chaplin, Chaplin Bow Church.

[5:28] He's been with us for a number of years.

[5:31] Uh, does a great job. Uh, that's

[5:33] a picture of Bow up there in the

[5:34] center, working on one of our fires.

[5:36] He, he comes out and helps do rehab.

[5:38] He's very involved in our department.

[5:40] I couldn't ask for a better person to, to be in that position.

[5:44] Uh, nearly every Friday he spends

[5:47] the entire day with crews and goes on calls and

[5:50] kind of helps, helps him out.

[5:52] So it's a, it's a wonderful thing that, that we have there.

[5:56] So you can see our average years of

[5:57] service have trended downward.

[5:59] Uh, you know, the, the interesting part is every year we have 27

[6:03] people basically adding another 27

[6:05] years to the, to the program.

[6:07] But over time, you can see as that's trended down,

[6:10] uh, to the, to last year where we were at one of our lowest levels of,

[6:15] of our average years of service.

[6:16] And our total years of service have done the same thing,

[6:18] they follow that obviously.

[6:20] Um, but with the turnover that we've experienced, like I said,

[6:23] we're a very young department.

[6:27] In 2025, 2026,

[6:30] uh, in that fiscal year we hired 13 employees.

[6:34] Uh, that's the largest number of employees that I've hired

[6:36] in one given year.

[6:39] I have currently 52% of my staff has less than three years of experience.

[6:44] Last year, it was 52%.

[6:47] The year before that, it was 63%.

[6:50] So we're starting to trend in a little different direction.

[6:52] I think some things that we've done,

[6:54] the new paramedic class that's in position right now,

[6:57] that we're going to start with nine people.

[6:59] Uh, coming up, we're, we're waiting on a date yet because the

[7:03] accreditation has slowed the, the process down.

[7:06] We're hoping in the next week or two this class will actually get

[7:10] off the ground.

[7:11] Uh, if not, as soon as it gets started, it'll, it'll move forward.

[7:16] I believe that that is going to help us significantly because we're

[7:21] putting a large number of people through that program

[7:22] at the same time.

[7:24] Which gives them the benefit of being able to work with other people on

[7:28] their shift who are doing the same thing.

[7:32] It's a difficult thing to do,

[7:34] there's a lot of ride time, a lot of clinical time,

[7:37] uh, not to mention a, a pretty difficult class that goes along with that.

[7:41] And so the internal support that they'll have by working with one

[7:45] another, by working with the other staff that are currently there,

[7:49] I think we'll really, um, bond those people together.

[7:53] Can, can I interrupt and ask a question?

[7:55] So you said 52% have fewer than three years of service.

[7:59] Does that mean they're brand new, three years altogether, or they

[8:03] came from somewhere else but only three years with Newton?

[8:07] So it's a little bit of a mix.

[8:08] Uh, the majority of those are coming in with zero experience.

[8:13] Um, we have a handful that have come from other volunteer departments,

[8:17] this is their first full-time position.

[8:22] but the majority are coming in with zero experience.

[8:27] One of the things I tell them when, when they come here is,

[8:30] we are a busy department for a single station unit with the

[8:34] staffing level that we have, we run a lot of calls.

[8:37] 3600 calls keeps them, keeps them hopping all day long.

[8:41] And I tell them that literally in two years of experience, they're

[8:45] going to get five years of experience on some other departments.

[8:49] I would say the average for a, uh, uh, fire station is roughly 1500

[8:54] to 1700 calls per year.

[8:58] So we're running more than double that amount.

[9:01] So they are getting, they're getting good experience.

[9:04] And I believe that, um, it's a challenge, right?

[9:07] It is, it is challenging for them.

[9:14] 26, 27, we will have an upcoming retirement, uh, one of our

[9:19] firefighters, uh, Mike Browning will retire in October,

[9:22] we believe at this point.

[9:24] Um, and so he'll retire with 18 years of experience.

[9:29] So kind of looking at our district where the brown center in the section

[9:32] or brown center in the middle of the county.

[9:35] Uh, that denotes the City of Newton and the the, um, City of Lambs Grove,

[9:40] which we contract for fire protection.

[9:43] And then it's also the Newton rural benefited fire district.

[9:46] City of Newton itself has about 11, 12 square miles.

[9:50] The rural benefited fire district is about 53 square miles.

[9:55] Uh, population, Newton is just over 15,000.

[9:59] the rest of our district outside of the city is about another 5,000.

[10:03] So we're just over 20,000 for a total population that we cover within within the county.

[10:09] And then you can see all the other different colors that are out there are all the different departments that are within the county itself.

[10:18] I supposed to say 25, 26. I don't know how that got that got left from before.

[10:22] Um, but we ended up with 3,569 calls.

[10:27] As it's been in the past, um, the majority of the calls that we respond to are EMS calls.

[10:33] So you can see 3,065 calls were EMS.

[10:36] Uh, 504 were actual fire responses.

[10:40] Pretty, go ahead. Sorry.

[10:42] When you say 3,065 are EMS, do those include transfers in those calls?

[10:47] It does, yes.

[10:48] Each transfer is is its own call.

[10:50] Yes, that's correct.

[10:51] These are all of our responses that we do.

[10:53] Thank you.

[10:54] Mhm.

[10:56] So that one year call volume, 3,569, 9.778 calls per 24-hour shift.

[11:04] Um, this is where we've seen a significant change over the years.

[11:08] Uh, when I came here in 2011, uh, that was down around 2,000 calls.

[11:14] And so, um, significantly different than what we're seeing today.

[11:18] This is about one call every two hours and 45 minutes.

[11:22] Average call length, uh, in town's about an hour

[11:24] by the time they go to the call, take care of the patient, transport to the hospital, restock, do all the things that they need to do.

[11:31] It's it's a little over an hour.

[11:34] Um, you have reports to do.

[11:36] We have lots of other stuff that's going on.

[11:38] We have inspections, we have, um, training, we have hydrant testing,

[11:43] there's there's a wide variety of things that we that we have outside of that.

[11:48] Five-year call volume. Oh, sorry.

[11:50] So, I guess to go off of your question,

[11:53] when you we said those include transport numbers,

[11:56] what number of those are specifically transport numbers?

[12:01] I I think I'll I'll have that in a second.

[12:02] Oh, okay, coming up.

[12:03] Coming up.

[12:04] Sorry.

[12:05] No, that's okay. Good question.

[12:07] Lot of numbers.

[12:08] Yeah, it is a lot of numbers.

[12:11] Um, so our five-year call volume, uh, still continues to rise.

[12:15] You can see it lags behind and that's just because that over time

[12:18] the call volume went up, uh, fairly rapidly, um, and it's kind of plateauing out.

[12:24] So we're seeing it kind of plateau out around the the 3,600 mark.

[12:31] And again, I go back to the to the 2,000 numbers, that was one call every four hours and 18 minutes.

[12:37] It's about an 80% increase in calls over that time period.

[12:41] Which is a significant number considering staffing levels are

[12:43] relatively close to what they were at the time that I came here in 2011.

[12:51] So you can kind of see the the chart of see the the chart of of the calls and kind of how that's increased over time.

[12:55] This only goes back to 2016, obviously then, you know, it's just

[12:59] down pretty drastically from there.

[13:03] So when we look at the call disbursement within our within our, um, our area,

[13:08] you can see it's concentrated over the the Newton area.

[13:12] Which you would expect, right?

[13:15] Um, fire calls, uh, have gone up a little bit.

[13:19] Uh, we're seeing more, um, false alarms. That's one of the things we're seeing.

[13:24] One of the things that I would say is adding to that is

[13:28] many people now have fire alarms in their homes.

[13:31] Um, so lots of systems that are being monitored,

[13:34] uh, by an independent agency

[13:36] and and so that's increasing, um, some call volume there.

[13:42] The fire run concentration again, pretty concentrated around the the Newton area.

[13:47] If you zoom in a little tighter to the Newton space,

[13:49] uh, you'll start to see some hotspots that show up in different locations.

[13:53] And a lot of those actually parallel up to some of the the

[13:56] fire alarm responses that we're talking about.

[14:00] EMS calls, you can see the EMS calls, uh, again,

[14:04] we saw it go up, uh, around that COVID time is when we started to

[14:09] see calls drop.

[14:12] Uh, and that was more I think about fear of actually

[14:16] you know, we we told people that, uh, we can take you to the hospital.

[14:20] There is COVID there.

[14:22] You can, you know, you will be exposed to it if you if you go

[14:25] there.

[14:27] That was a sentiment that we heard from people.

[14:31] Um, and so we saw people really saying yes, I I would just as soon,

[14:35] you know, stay at home.

[14:39] Which also led to other problems because we saw a lot of the calls

[14:43] that we were getting then become more severe.

[14:45] People were waiting longer

[14:47] um, to call because they were they were somewhat afraid of the

[14:49] healthcare system.

[14:50] Whoops, sorry.

[14:53] On the bottom, the green graph that you see is actually our

[14:57] our transports, the the

[14:59] facility transfers,

[15:00] the ones that we do to other facilities.

[15:03] So facility to facility.

[15:05] You can see the numbers were much higher back in the late uh 2010s.

[15:11] Uh, you can see we're up around that 817 number for for transfers.

[15:17] Uh, they've come down some since then.

[15:22] Um and it's it's a cyclical thing,

[15:24] right? It it goes up, it goes down.

[15:26] Uh, it changes over time.

[15:30] As we've talked before, you know, one of the things that we see,

[15:34] Um, we just ran numbers here recently,

[15:37] the, the the number of calls is roughly

[15:42] um, 25%.

[15:45] The, the amount of revenue that the transfers bring in is about, oh,

[15:49] 35 to 40%.

[15:54] With the numbers down a little bit, those numbers have kind of

[15:56] dropped down a little bit as well.

[15:58] Uh, but still a significant portion of revenue.

[16:03] EMS run concentration similar to what you saw in fire.

[16:07] Uh, quite a bit of concentration right within the community.

[16:11] The difference here is when we zoom in, uh, it's

[16:14] it's not pocketed quite as much.

[16:16] But you're talking about 3,600 calls versus 500 calls.

[16:21] Um, so that's why you see that concentration,

[16:23] it's more red right over the entire city.

[16:27] So we break down our responses.

[16:29] Um, every year we take a look kind of at these.

[16:32] You know, the the biggest single item that we see is miscellaneous medical.

[16:38] So these are medical reasons why people call and want to go to the hospital.

[16:43] Um, that's our single biggest portion.

[16:46] The inner facility transfers then typically are the are the next.

[16:50] And so you see that's about 20% roughly, 19% of of what we do.

[16:55] When we look at the reasons for why they call,

[16:58] uh, falls are still probably the leading category

[17:01] outside of the miscellaneous medical.

[17:04] Falls are a big, a big thing that we see.

[17:07] Roughly 30% of the calls uh that we receive are for patients

[17:10] who don't end up being transported.

[17:15] And that number, we've seen that rise up a little bit

[17:17] over the last couple of years.

[17:20] Um, I think we're seeing people staying in their homes

[17:22] as long as they possibly can,

[17:24] and I applaud them for that.

[17:26] Uh, but it becomes difficult.

[17:28] And so we end up, we end up going on a lot of um, helping people up.

[17:34] Um, and so those falls account for a pretty large segment of that.

[17:39] So you see in our um in our transport versus no transport.

[17:44] Um, you know, we, we end up transporting the vast majority of people.

[17:51] Uh, this one's shows 77%, 23% that were, were not transporting.

[17:57] I would say those numbers change month to month,

[18:00] but over the, over the period, that's what we saw.

[18:04] We also see different days of the week having different call volumes.

[18:07] With um, higher higher numbers on weekends.

[18:12] Um, really this goes hand-in-hand with when people are at home.

[18:17] Uh, that's the significant times that we see it.

[18:19] So, during the day, um, our call volume is higher than at night.

[18:25] Um, but we don't see enough of a change in either of those

[18:28] to really change a staffing model.

[18:32] So, if, you know, if we had specific times and and and days

[18:35] where we could establish a distinct pattern,

[18:40] we could talk about changing our staffing model to try to cover that.

[18:45] But in this case, we don't see it drop low enough where we could start

[18:48] shunting more of the people towards the times where we're seeing

[18:51] more calls. There's just not that much change.

[18:57] If you look at those numbers, um, we're not talking about variances of

[19:01] like there's not, there's not 2,000 of the calls happen in this band

[19:04] and it, and then there's only 1,000 here.

[19:09] It's pretty, it's a pretty distinct average over the entire amount.

[19:14] And then our inter-facility transfers again, the times increase over the day.

[19:21] Pati-patients by age group, um, again, obviously,

[19:25] uh, as we age, we tend to use these types of services more.

[19:30] And so it's not a, it's not something that is

[19:31] too shocking to see where that is.

[19:34] And it's a pretty even split as far as gender of the patients

[19:36] that we serve as well.

[19:40] Now a couple of things that we've noticed, uh, are overlapping calls.

[19:45] Uh, last year we showed a total of 592 calls that had

[19:47] two overlaps going on at the same time.

[19:53] And so that means we've got an ambulance out on a call,

[19:55] uh, we then get a second ambulance call.

[19:59] uh,

[20:00] that would be an overlapping call.

[20:02] Or the same if we're out on a fire, and we end up with an ambulance call,

[20:07] that's an overlapping call.

[20:08] And so we keep track of these because uh this is where our resources sometimes

[20:14] tend to get thin.

[20:15] Um, and what we're doing is we're running the same report year over year

[20:21] just to take a look at where we're at. And what we're finding is the numbers

[20:24] are relatively close.

[20:25] Okay?

[20:26] So from last year to this year,

[20:28] total number of calls is not a whole lot different.

[20:30] Last year I believe the number of calls we were at 3644 calls.

[20:35] Uh this year we're at 3569, I think was the number.

[20:39] Um, so not a lot of difference and we're seeing those numbers over that first

[20:44] six months. Um,

[20:47] matching what we saw last year.

[20:49] The reason I only have half of a year this year that we're looking at for 26.

[20:54] They changed our um reporting system, we went from the National Fire Incident reporting system, now we're in the National Emergency Incident or National Emergency Response Incident system.

[21:07] They changed the the system and they're not compatible.

[21:11] So it's really hard to get information out of the system right now.

[21:15] Uh in fact, Nirus, which is the acronym for the new system.

[21:20] They don't they still don't have the overlapping calls report that we need

[21:24] in order to run this.

[21:25] And so that's why you're only seeing six months of data from last year.

[21:29] Um, we had occurrences with four overlapping calls.

[21:33] Uh you again can see the numbers are relatively close.

[21:37] And we did have some with five or more overlaps.

[21:41] In some ways it's not overly shocking because uh if we take a transfer to Iowa City,

[21:48] that can be a four-hour transfer.

[21:51] So for four hours, I have an ambulance um in transit.

[21:56] A lot can happen here in four hours.

[21:59] Um,

[22:00] I think there's been times where we've had tours going on where um we had everybody in the station when the tour started, by the time it was over, it was me.

[22:10] Yeah, it happened last year within a 30-minute span.

[22:13] Yeah.

[22:14] All three went out.

[22:15] Right.

[22:16] And for some reason we see that

[22:18] we see that happen, well, you can see how many times that happens um in a year.

[22:23] I will say that over the last couple of years, we've seen more incidents where we are bringing in outside resources to cover calls.

[22:31] Um,

[22:32] just last week.

[22:34] Uh we had a an incident south of town and it it basically took up all of our resources, while we were out on that particular call, we had two emergency calls in town.

[22:47] And we had to distribute um other cities to come in and help take that call volume.

[22:52] Um, so we're seeing that happen, feels like a little bit more, the numbers are showing that it's about the same, um but we are we are having that happen.

[23:03] So if you get that call that says, hey, why was there a Kofax ambulance in town taking a an EMS call,

[23:10] it's typically because all of our other units are out.

[23:13] So.

[23:16] All combined if you take in totals those those up, so if you take 592 times two, 139 times three, that totals roughly 50% of our calls.

[23:29] So we compare ourselves to the national standard and take a look kind of at the times um and what we're doing is we're looking at 911 calls within the community.

[23:37] So, uh from the time the units notified until it's in route, um 3.34 minutes.

[23:45] Uh this number is actually down from last year, um it's down 27 seconds from where we were.

[23:51] It's something that we watch, it's something that we watch, it's something that we're measuring and it does come down.

[23:56] The national standard for that is less than a minute.

[24:00] Less than a minute is a short amount of time, right?

[24:02] Like we want people on ambulances as quickly as possible and going out and helping the public.

[24:08] Part of the reason why we're seeing a higher number is because we are doing other things, right?

[24:13] We are doing training, we are doing inspections, we are doing testing, we're doing lots of other things that um slow down that that immediate response.

[24:24] And so we are off on that number.

[24:28] Our in route to on scene time, this is basically travel time from station to the um to where we're going.

[24:36] Uh 4.86 minutes, uh we're a little higher than than last year.

[24:41] Uh the standard is four minutes.

[24:44] Now, the standard is actually to put a BLS ambulance on scene.

[24:48] BLS ambulance is two EMTs.

[24:51] Uh we are typically putting uh for anything that is dispatched with a um with a reason that is con

[25:00] considered an ALS type call,

[25:02] difficulty breathing, cardiac issues or those.

[25:05] Uh, they want ALS on scene within eight minutes.

[25:09] We're putting ALS on scene in that same time frame.

[25:13] And so that we believe that this is still a good number.

[25:15] It's a good response time.

[25:17] Uh, we're putting the right people on the scene in the times

[25:19] that they need to be there.

[25:22] Once arrived on scene to left scene,

[25:24] uh, the national average they're targeting 15 minutes,

[25:27] 90% of the time.

[25:29] Uh, we're at 19.4 minutes, 4 8 minutes.

[25:33] uh, which was an increase from last year.

[25:35] Uh, we believe that it's because they're they're doing more on scene,

[25:39] getting the patient ready to go to the hospital.

[25:42] And so it's a we we believe that it's a good number, um,

[25:47] and it still shows that they're they're getting close to those.

[25:51] Is that due to some of the nature of the calls you have?

[25:54] Like you've got a lot of falls, a lot of falls, a lot of things that miscellaneous that maybe...

[25:59] It's like 30% of people don't come to the hospital, so

[26:02] Correct. Those you probably do take a little longer with because you can, right?

[26:05] Right. Because we spend time making sure, you know, it's it's common

[26:08] for them to, you know, they'll ask if they can help them with some vitals.

[26:13] Can we can we check you out just make sure that you're doing okay and

[26:17] And so they do spend time with them and they do try to help them to identify the things that are

[26:21] potentially causing false, right?

[26:24] So, yes, that's possible.

[26:27] And then from the time they leave the scene to the destination, so basically going from

[26:31] from the response to the to the hospital.

[26:34] Uh, the goal is four minutes, 90% of the time.

[26:38] We're about seven seven and a half minutes.

[26:41] Um, again, that's just a product of of um traveling

[26:45] from the from the home to the to the ER.

[26:50] Um, there's not a lot you can do to to change that time.

[26:55] Uh, one thing that can skew those numbers, um,

[26:59] if we included information about the transfers.

[27:02] Obviously, those numbers are vastly different.

[27:05] Um, there are times where they'll call for a transfer, uh,

[27:08] it may not go out for 30 minutes to an hour.

[27:11] It just depends on whether the patient is ready to go or not.

[27:15] And so those are not included in that.

[27:19] Fire Marshall's office, our fire Marshall investigated

[27:22] 36 fires last year.

[27:24] Uh, I would say that that's a it's not a completely accurate number.

[27:31] Um, all of the fires that we go to, uh, we try to, um, come up with a a cause

[27:36] determination, right?

[27:39] Um, there are certain ones that we have to investigate,

[27:42] uh, larger losses and so on.

[27:44] Those are the ones that will, um, spend more time on.

[27:48] Uh, we didn't have any deaths last year. We did have four

[27:50] civilian injuries last year.

[27:53] Um, and we responded to 147 false alarms.

[27:58] Oops.

[27:59] Fire Prevention office every year, um, we send cruise out into the schools in October.

[28:03] They're planning on doing that again.

[28:06] um, and spend time teaching fire prevention to our third graders.

[28:13] So a little bit on the business side of the fire department, um,

[28:17] we we track our numbers over the years, we keep an eye kind of on

[28:20] on what things are looking like and what the trends are doing.

[28:23] Um, our revenues have increased, you know, we've we've we've increased revenue just about every year, it

[28:29] it'll oscillate up and down a little bit, but our trend line is positive.

[28:34] By far our biggest revenue is is our ambulance revenue.

[28:39] Uh, you remember three years ago, we started with our billing company.

[28:44] Um, our billing company has done a good job to help us

[28:47] uh get as much revenue as possible.

[28:50] Uh, 1.24 million last year.

[28:53] Uh, the second biggest piece is our ground emergency medical

[28:56] transport, which is also an ambulance function.

[29:01] Uh, the ambulance function that pulls in about $370,000,

[29:05] so that's a significant portion of our revenue just right there.

[29:09] The other piece that's a big one is the 169,000, that's our

[29:13] contract fire perfect protection.

[29:16] Um, so that would be the city of Lambs Grove. We have a contract

[29:19] with them and then also the Newton Row benefited fire district.

[29:25] So you can see how our ambulance revenue, uh, the first year that

[29:28] they came online with our billing company.

[29:32] Um, it went way down, um, and that had to do with timing.

[29:36] Um, the next year they came back up closer to where we were prior to.

[29:40] You can see this year, I believe that this is more of a

[29:43] full implementation

[29:44] and that we're I think we're doing well with our with our recovery.

[29:51] Again, we talked about the ambulance calls, uh, number of transfers

[29:54] and so on in the previous slide.

[29:57] So other items that you see I'm doing, you know, I've

[29:59] ferences a few times training.

[30:01] Um, every day is a training day.

[30:03] I think our captains are committed and they do a

[30:05] really good job of of training our people.

[30:07] and they spend a lot of time doing that.

[30:10] Uh we do some hydrant testing.

[30:12] Those numbers are probably down compared to

[30:14] previous years.

[30:16] Um, but but we still do that every year.

[30:20] Our host testing.

[30:21] We pull all the hose off, fill it full of water,

[30:23] pressure test it,

[30:25] drain it all out, put it all back on,

[30:26] that happens every year.

[30:28] And then again with our ladder testing.

[30:30] This year was actually a year where we hired a

[30:32] contractor. Every five years we bring them in to

[30:35] actually do a third-party basically inspection

[30:38] and testing.

[30:40] Uh, it makes sure that we're not missing

[30:42] something as we do our own testing.

[30:44] But every so four years we test, fifth year

[30:46] they come in and and help us test.

[30:50] Uh, I just received this um email last week

[30:52] on Friday.

[30:55] Uh, this is our new Pierce apparatus is now

[30:57] in production.

[30:59] And so we finally have something to show.

[31:02] Uh, this will be our new tower ladder.

[31:04] Almost done.

[31:06] And so you can see there they've got the cab

[31:08] assembled.

[31:10] It doesn't have a roof yet, but

[31:11] there is a engine tunnel, there is

[31:13] kind of some front end work that's being done.

[31:17] So it's exciting to actually see that in play.

[31:20] Uh, by the sales estimate, uh, they say that

[31:22] this will take roughly nine weeks to build.

[31:27] So we've been waiting almost four years

[31:29] and it'll take them nine weeks to build it.

[31:33] So I don't have any current pictures.

[31:35] We have an ambulance that was due. We thought

[31:37] we were getting it in July.

[31:39] Um, they had a slow down in production and it

[31:41] looks like that's going to be somewhere between

[31:43] October and December.

[31:46] So we have an ambulance that's also being built

[31:47] at this time.

[31:52] Okay.

[31:54] With that, obviously lots of co or lots of numbers,

[31:57] lots of things again. Um,

[31:58] but I'll open it up for questions.

[32:01] Uh, I'll start unless somebody else has a

[32:02] question.

[32:04] Um, so I have a question, and this one probably

[32:05] hits home this time of year.

[32:08] Um, but a few years ago, uh, we can recall,

[32:10] uh, what my nieces had go through at the Perry

[32:13] school district.

[32:15] So, um, just general question for Chief

[32:17] Wellick and or maybe Chief Perdest.

[32:19] What what sort of partnership and or

[32:21] uh outreach do we do at the school to align

[32:24] ourselves on emergency response, should there be

[32:27] an active shooter or uh fatality or some sort of

[32:29] incident at our schools and and how often do we

[32:32] do walk-throughs of those school buildings?

[32:38] So I can speak for the uh,

[32:39] Please.

[32:40] the fire department side.

[32:42] What month was that Rob, we did the training?

[32:46] out at Community Heights?

[32:48] Was that in May?

[32:51] Mhm.

[32:51] Yeah, in May we had a um response training that

[32:54] Okay.

[32:55] was brought in.

[32:59] We had most of the department was out

[33:01] there for because it was three days worth of

[33:03] training.

[33:04] Uh, most of the department was out there

[33:06] for at least one of those days.

[33:08] Um, so we do some response type training that

[33:10] goes along with that.

[33:13] Uh, we just opened a school, uh, Aurora

[33:15] Heights just opened.

[33:17] Uh, it was right down to the wire to get it

[33:19] opened up.

[33:20] Uh, some of the major concerns that were on

[33:23] the table towards the end were security.

[33:26] Yep.

[33:27] Um, and again, that's led both through um the

[33:30] police and fire departments here in

[33:32] Newton.

[33:34] So,

[33:35] Um, I would let Rob talk about more of our Chief

[33:37] Perdest talk more about the the actual response

[33:40] for like the question specifically you are,

[33:43] were asking.

[33:44] Yeah, and then maybe with that, um, on a lighter

[33:46] note, um,

[33:48] what's the frequency you you mentioned the uh

[33:50] the hydrant testing?

[33:52] Is it an annual,

[33:53] Um, just thinking of a couple of hydrants that

[33:55] I know of around town that have spotted, um,

[33:57] that are either like partially submerged or,

[34:01] you know, the landlords or whatever land owners

[34:03] have taken upon themselves to maybe not

[34:05] care so much about that particular hydrant. So,

[34:08] how frequently do all of the hydrants get tested,

[34:10] I guess is the question.

[34:12] So the hydrants in the past were supposed to be

[34:14] tested every three years.

[34:15] Okay.

[34:16] Um, so we had the city divided into three

[34:19] separate districts.

[34:20] One of the things that's currently being done is

[34:23] they're doing a flow model.

[34:25] Mhm.

[34:26] They're modeling the flows that are in town.

[34:29] One of the interesting things that they found

[34:31] during that was, uh, by testing

[34:33] what was it Jody, 12 hydrants?

[34:37] 15?

[34:38] Yeah, 15.

[34:39] They they actually identified issues

[34:41] within the system that were adjacent to

[34:42] the actual flow areas.

[34:45] And so, part of, um, we do what's called an

[34:47] ISO inspection.

[34:50] Uh, every every three to eight years, they come

[34:52] in and assess basically what the what the

[34:54] department is doing and the water system and

[34:59] dispatch center and so on.

[35:01] Uh, those those things are all combined

[35:04] to come up with a fire suppression rating system.

[35:07] So, um,

[35:12] There's a push to go to more computer modeling

[35:15] instead of actual flow testing.

[35:18] Okay.

[35:19] So, they do flow, they flow the hydrants every year

[35:22] to flush things out.

[35:24] When we try to do our hydrant testing, we also end up

[35:27] turning up a lot of debris within the system.

[35:31] And so there's some question as to whether or not it's advantageous to do that

[35:34] or if it's better to computer model and spot check.

[35:38] Sure.

[35:39] So we're in kind of a, would you call it a transition stage,

[35:44] phase?

[35:45] Right.

[35:46] Um, where we're we're looking at doing that.

[35:47] And then also does the fire department paint said hydrants

[35:51] or how does a hydrant that needs paint or needs attention,

[35:55] you know, how do residents get a hold of or what happens then?

[35:58] If it needs, you know, painted or, you know,

[36:01] I've seen some silver ones around town and it's like,

[36:03] wow, I don't know that that's been tested or painted recently.

[36:05] So, you know, people ask me those questions and I,

[36:08] I don't know, it's a.

[36:10] Yeah, we we do not paint hydrants.

[36:12] Okay.

[36:12] That would be done through the utilities department.

[36:14] Okay.

[36:15] Got you.

[36:16] That's great.

[36:19] Um, that's all for now.

[36:20] Thank you.

[36:21] Yeah, you're welcome.

[36:23] Any other questions for chief?

[36:24] I understand.

[36:25] Oh, go ahead.

[36:26] Yeah, just the false alarms. You had 147.

[36:28] I saw that heat map. It seemed to be concentrated around

[36:30] a lot of industrial or commercial business areas

[36:32] because I know what the hot spots was right behind

[36:33] my house.

[36:34] I'm like, or right on my house. I'm like,

[36:36] how's just false alarms, so it must be a business close by.

[36:39] Mhm.

[36:40] So, do we have any? When those false alarms come in,

[36:43] is there a service fee that you guys charge for having to attend those if they exceed so many?

[36:48] Like, hey, after three, we probably ought to be.

[36:51] We've we've discussed that.

[36:53] Okay.

[36:54] I thought you had, but we.

[36:55] Yeah, we've talked.

[36:56] We talked about that as part of our cost recovery program.

[36:59] Yeah, yeah.

[37:00] Um, and to this point, we haven't had an appetite

[37:02] really to move forward with that.

[37:04] Okay.

[37:05] It does take up time. 147 is quite a few.

[37:07] It is.

[37:07] And what's average time what's the false arm, I mean, you look at the service,

[37:11] you know, the call time, you've got those national standards. They all apply to that, right?

[37:15] So you're looking, you know, 20 minutes at least.

[37:17] And that's fire truck out, potentially an ambulance.

[37:19] I mean, it's

[37:21] Right.

[37:22] So, I mean, there's there's some.

[37:24] As we start talking about budgets and having enough money,

[37:27] that seems to be a place where maybe some people are taking, I want to say,

[37:31] taking advantage, but there's opportunity there, right?

[37:33] Yes.

[37:34] For using our resources wisely and maybe putting some carrot to the stick

[37:38] kind of thing to help drive that.

[37:40] Yeah, like what we've talked about in the past, you know, is,

[37:44] um, failure to successfully maintain or continually

[37:48] maintain sometimes results in more alarms.

[37:55] And so, um, I definitely think there is some potential there for

[37:59] reducing some of those times,

[38:01] reducing some of that, those responses,

[38:04] by having some sort of fee if you start going

[38:07] over a certain amount. I mean, that's a.

[38:10] Yeah.

[38:11] Cuz I'd be interested in entertaining that.

[38:12] If it's, you know, there's always that threshold where

[38:15] you know, we are, you're very service oriented, so we don't

[38:17] want to be at the point to nickel and dime people.

[38:19] We got to balance it.

[38:20] But it does come down to practical things when we're talking about budget

[38:22] and, you know.

[38:24] Right.

[38:26] Yep, thanks.

[38:27] So, just a follow up for that, how many is repeat

[38:30] repeat false alarms?

[38:33] Uh, it varies from year to year.

[38:36] Um, we've had, I'm trying to think of what the highest

[38:39] number I've seen.

[38:40] I think we've had uh, 12 from one particular

[38:44] place in town.

[38:49] Um, you know, so having some sort of scalable amount, you know, where,

[38:54] uh, maybe you get four free or five free a year.

[38:58] Two.

[38:59] We have a.

[39:00] Two.

[39:01] What did I say?

[39:02] Oh, right.

[39:03] I mean, honestly, we have some that we don't ever go out on

[39:05] false alarms too.

[39:08] Some systems are way more complex than others.

[39:11] Yeah.

[39:12] So, I mean, there's a lot that goes into some of those

[39:14] calculations

[39:16] because it's

[39:17] you know, I have systems that have water for part of it,

[39:21] air that holds it back so it's not freezing in the attic. I mean,

[39:25] There's lots of moving parts in all of that.

[39:28] Yeah.

[39:28] I think it it is detailed. So I mean,

[39:30] you know, schools had maybe a couple.

[39:33] Yeah.

[39:34] And I know of one particular business that you've spent a lot of time.

[39:36] You and your fire marshal spent a lot of time this year at.

[39:38] Yeah.

[39:39] Uh, that the business just hasn't been able to maintain whatever they're

[39:41] supposed to be doing.

[39:43] So I mean, yeah.

[39:44] It could, you've got probably nothing, all the way from

[39:46] businesses that don't have anything to some that are just

[39:48] like, 'you know, this is the tenth time I've been here' and.

[39:51] We could always do an increasing scale.

[39:53] You know.

[39:54] An increase in.

[39:55] An increasing scale.

[39:56] Progressive scale.

[39:57] Yeah. is this and then it goes up every time after.

[40:00] Mhm.

[40:01] Yeah.

[40:02] But that also

[40:03] speaks to

[40:04] the ports of our inspection programs, right?

[40:06] You're gonna find some stuff.

[40:07] You're gonna advise people when you do inspect.

[40:09] Hey, you know, you might want to look at this because of

[40:11] This is potentially have a false alarm.

[40:13] You know? Right. Anyway, yeah. Thanks.

[40:15] another question.

[40:16] Speaking of the heat map, thank you for pointing out that heat map.

[40:18] On the EMS run concentrations.

[40:20] Looks like the Department of Corrections facility, um,

[40:23] we have to go out there for EMS.

[40:25] So is my understanding, do they not have their own

[40:28] onsite EMS at the prison?

[40:31] They have, um, yeah, they have medical care there. Okay.

[40:35] Uh, but there are certain things that they can't handle. Got you.

[40:38] That need to go to a hospital. Okay.

[40:40] Um, so we do respond there a fair amount.

[40:44] Okay. Thank you. Mhm.

[40:47] Uh, so I have some questions about the inter facility transfers.

[40:52] Can you talk a little bit more about exactly what that is

[40:55] and what specific ones those are majority at the time?

[40:58] Are those Demoin runs, Iowa City runs,

[41:01] how far out are we going with those?

[41:03] So we have a limit, we set a number, a number of years ago,

[41:07] uh, 100 miles is our radius that will go.

[41:09] So we don't go to Rochester or we don't go to Kansas City.

[41:13] Uh, we stay within 100 miles.

[41:17] Historically, that's been split between Demoin and Iowa City.

[41:23] Uh, over the past since COVID started,

[41:26] bed space has become very difficult to come by.

[41:30] Uh, we're seeing more to Waterloo, that's right at 100 miles for us.

[41:35] Uh, Cedar Rapids, Ames,

[41:38] um, all of the Demoin area hospitals.

[41:43] Used to just be the majority went to Mercy or Unity Point.

[41:47] That was kind of the program.

[41:50] Um, now we're seeing them spread out a little bit more just because of

[41:55] need for bed space.

[41:58] Uh, about 85% of our calls go to the Demoin area.

[42:02] Uh, roughly 10% go to Iowa City

[42:07] and then about 5% go to other areas.

[42:11] Um, but that's a fairly small number.

[42:14] Okay. And then can you just give a breakdown of what shifts are what?

[42:21] Um, like what's the morning shift, what's the afternoon shift,

[42:23] like how does that?

[42:25] You mean like what goes on in a normal?

[42:26] No, like what are what's the times of the shifts?

[42:29] So our shifts are 24 hours in length.

[42:32] So they start at 7:30 in the morning,

[42:34] and then at 7:30 the next morning that shift is done,

[42:37] the next crew comes on.

[42:40] So they start at 7:00 in the morning

[42:42] And then 7:30, yep, 7:30 to 7:30.

[42:45] So is it possible then that some of these transfers that I'm looking at,

[42:49] 168 of them took place between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.?

[42:54] Um, so we have people that

[42:58] have been awake for quite a long time, correct?

[43:03] Um, and just trying to wrap my head around is

[43:09] is that something that's worth the revenue?

[43:16] And maybe this isn't a conversation for it's pre-tape.

[43:18] No, it's a perfect time.

[43:20] You know, you you you've raised some, I mean, you talked about,

[43:23] you know, we have a lot of new people. Yep.

[43:28] So, we're hiring new people in that they

[43:31] the good news is they get a lot of experience. Mhm.

[43:37] Flip side of that is that they're doing 3,000 calls instead of

[43:40] 1,500 calls.

[43:44] And they're getting paid less than what the Metro pays.

[43:48] So we have some that leave early, go to the Metro, work

[43:51] half as much for more money.

[43:55] When they're working twice as hard for more work here.

[43:58] Potentially, right?

[44:00] Um, and then the length of

[44:03] if someone's doing an if we're doing a transport

[44:07] at 9:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.

[44:10] Even if you take out the 9:00 p.m. one, you know,

[44:14] you still got a lot of transports that are happening in those wee hours

[44:19] of people that have been potentially awake for a long time. Right.

[44:25] Um, so some of the things we do to manage that.

[44:28] Yeah, I'd like to know where we're going.

[44:29] So, uh, in the past two years, we've implemented time frames where

[44:34] we do non-emergent we don't do the non-emergent transfers overnight.

[44:39] So non-emergent means, uh, they're maybe just going to another hospital

[44:43] because they don't have the services here.

[44:46] Uh, they're going up for an evaluation tomorrow at Mercy and Demoin, for example.

[44:52] We would delay that until the next day.

[44:58] And what we do then is there are emergent calls that need to go right.

[45:04] now, like somebody's having a heart attack

[45:06] and they need to go to the cath lab in Demoin.

[45:08] Um, we take those.

[45:10] Uh, but those that's paired down some of the the calls.

[45:15] So you saw how our numbers have come down over the last few years.

[45:18] Part of that probably has to do with that because some of them

[45:21] they want to clear out of the hospital regardless.

[45:25] And so they'll work to try to find somebody else to take those.

[45:29] Um, we keep a close eye on our people during the day.

[45:33] So we know the captains know how many calls they've been on,

[45:36] how many runs they've done and so on.

[45:39] Uh, we've had instances where the captain has said, look,

[45:41] we are not going out of town overnight.

[45:44] Because everybody's been on multiple calls throughout the day.

[45:48] Nobody has had any any rest or any downtime.

[45:52] and they need some sleep, right?

[45:54] Yeah. Cuz those, those do happen.

[45:57] We rely on our supervisors to keep a pulse on on what's happening.

[46:02] And so, um, all of those things combined have

[46:06] I think changed a little bit of of what that looks like.

[46:10] Um, but quite honestly, you know, these people are still our citizens.

[46:17] right? And they need definitive care that they can't get here.

[46:21] So it is an important thing that we're doing for them

[46:23] to get them where they can get the definitive care.

[46:27] Uh, what we're doing is we're trying to we're trying to manage that risk

[46:29] a little bit better,

[46:33] uh, to keep to keep us from going past that point

[46:35] where somebody gets hurt.

[46:39] I don't know if that answers your question.

[46:40] Yeah, I guess, yeah, I just get

[46:44] My concern is that, you know, we get

[46:47] paramedics, EMTs, all this

[46:50] leaving to do something at 4:00 in the morning.

[46:55] And they've I don't know, are they I I don't know enough about fire

[46:57] service or how this shift works, like

[47:02] When are they sleeping? Are they expected to be up for that amount

[47:05] of time? Or what does that look like?

[47:08] So, we typically try to end our day somewhere around 4 or 5 o'clock.

[47:14] Um, and we try not to schedule any any major events at night.

[47:20] Um, I've had people here who go to bed at 7:00 at night

[47:24] to try to get some rest, um, in case they have calls overnight.

[47:30] Everybody manages their sleep differently.

[47:32] Okay.

[47:33] And so, um, there are days, uh,

[47:37] I think the highest number outside of disasters,

[47:40] the highest number of calls that I've seen are 26 during a 24-hour period.

[47:46] That's a lot of calls and when you come in in the morning, you see the

[47:49] people that are going out pretty tired.

[47:53] because it's just it it's a lot to do.

[47:56] Um, but there are also days where we may run only six calls or four calls.

[48:02] I will tell you in uh 2011 when I started here,

[48:07] we, I would say a handful of times a year, we didn't turn a wheel.

[48:12] Um, I can't remember the last time we've not turned a wheel for EMS.

[48:18] Well, that's a good one.

[48:19] We continue, we continue, that continues to turn.

[48:24] Right? I mean, it it just is it is what it is.

[48:28] Um, but I think the again, it's trying to do the things we can

[48:33] to manage the risk that goes along with that. Okay.

[48:40] Chief, on a follow-up note, if we choose at some point

[48:44] not to do these transfers out of the city,

[48:48] who would then be available to do those?

[48:52] Because you mentioned the service to our our citizens.

[48:54] Right.

[48:55] Um, so there are private ambulances that do uh, transfers.

[49:01] Um, so there's one of those that's uh, come into Grenell and is doing

[49:04] some of that now.

[49:08] Uh, Mercy does have some ambulances, but Mercy has very limited staffing

[49:11] in the overnight hours

[49:14] and limited availability for for that work.

[49:19] My understanding is the the GEMTs, um,

[49:23] There's a fine balance here because they do generate revenue.

[49:26] probably more revenue than the regular ambulance

[49:29] because we're not they're they pay better, I would assume.

[49:32] So there's a certain amount of those that for revenue stream help us

[49:35] to have that.

[49:37] But too many of them, then you're you're shorting your staff.

[49:39] So there is a juggling match there, I assume to to keep that level.

[49:43] Uh, I assume you wouldn't want to recommend we get rid of them

[49:45] all together

[49:48] because I think we would have a pretty big revenue shortfall

[49:49] at that point then.

[49:51] Right. Yeah.

[49:52] So,

[49:53] And also, if it's your loved one sitting in the hospital

[49:55] waiting for a transfer,

[49:56] Yeah.

[49:57] in a rural hospital in in Iowa.

[50:00] and we provide this service, you're going to be a lot happier.

[50:03] with the amount of time that it takes to get that transfer

[50:05] than if we didn't have it.

[50:07] Well, I said benefited for a transfer. It was middle of the afternoon.

[50:12] They got there pretty quick.

[50:13] that's always the case. I mean

[50:14] No, no.

[50:15] It was overnight once. Sometimes you don't have a choice but uh

[50:17] Yeah, yeah.

[50:19] And terrible things happened the middle of the night.

[50:21] [laughter] Frequently. Yeah.

[50:23] So, yeah.

[50:24] Any other questions for Chief Wellick?

[50:26] Chief, I would I would be remiss if I did not ask you to talk

[50:31] a little bit about your 9/11 celebration this week or not.

[50:35] Yeah, so our 9/11 service is just 25 years.

[50:39] Um

[50:40] What's interesting for me is, uh, I've been in the fire service

[50:44] that's going on 35 years for me.

[50:47] And, um,

[50:50] I got a lot of laughs, uh, a few weeks ago we were talking about

[50:55] kids and and I said that my youngest had just turned 30.

[50:59] And the majority of the people in my department are less than

[51:02] 30 years old.

[51:04] Um,

[51:05] Many of the people that are providing service here today

[51:09] are not alive when 9/11 happened.

[51:12] Um,

[51:13] So, it's a big year. 25 years is a long time.

[51:16] Uh, you know, our we vowed to never forget.

[51:21] You know, we have it on our trucks on our our emblems that are on

[51:24] the side of the truck and

[51:26] Um, you know, we continue to to honor those.

[51:29] Uh, it will be a nice service this year. The American Legion

[51:33] has offered to be a part of it again.

[51:34] So, they're going to offer the 21-gun salute as part of the

[51:37] the ceremony.

[51:38] They did that same thing and for the 15 year and the uh 20 year.

[51:43] And so, uh, that'll be exciting to see.

[51:46] Uh, it'll be the similar program to what you've seen in the past.

[51:50] That September 11th at what time?

[51:52] It's on September 11th at 5:30 p.m.

[51:57] Any other questions?

[51:59] [cough] Thank you, Chief.

[52:01] Yes, thank you.

[52:05] Item number 31 this evening, we are blessed with another

[52:08] staff report.

[52:09] This is the library annual report, so we would ask Ms.

[52:13] Nicole Terry to come forward, please.

[52:15] [cough]

[52:22] Hello, Nicole Terry, library director.

[52:26] So, we will dive right in and hopefully try to get out before

[52:29] the next wave of the storm hits.

[52:31] Um, so I'm not going to read through all of our strategic plan,

[52:34] but we did adopt it just last year.

[52:35] This year, we're highly focused on the incident and emergency

[52:38] response planning.

[52:39] Um, we have some money through the CIP that we're putting into

[52:42] all of that for security,

[52:44] um, changing locks, changing our panel if we can, and those

[52:47] sort of things.

[52:49] So that's what we're hitting on hard this year.

[52:54] Library staffing, we have five library board trustees. They are

[52:57] voluntary, but they are a governing board,

[52:59] and I like to include them in there so you can see altogether who's

[53:02] running the library.

[53:03] We have four full-time staff with three librarians.

[53:07] Um, the three librarians are myself, the public services librarian

[53:10] and the youth services librarian.

[53:11] We do all of the collection, the programming, um, managing of the IT,

[53:16] um, a lot of those facets of the library.

[53:19] And then our administrative assistant who does a lot of the

[53:22] acquisitions, interlibrary loan,

[53:23] um, and then all of those administrative, uh, duties like

[53:27] they have in every other department.

[53:29] Then we have nine part-time staff, including one cataloger,

[53:33] two information assistants,

[53:34] four library assistants and two pages.

[53:38] So our bottom left-hand corner is us getting, um, training on

[53:42] CPR and stop the bleed

[53:43] over at the Jasper County offices.

[53:47] and then we took a photo with our Halloween booth that is going

[53:50] to be coming back at the end

[53:51] of September.

[53:52] So, that'll be coming up very soon.

[53:57] Uh, we had 895 new library cards users this year.

[54:02] It's about double our normal.

[54:04] So we usually have about 400, but we're seeing an uptrend

[54:07] in a lot of our numbers

[54:08] across the board and I'll dive into those in a little bit.

[54:10] Um, we have 12,464 total card holders.

[54:15] And then we just debuted our new design on September 1st for National

[54:18] Library Card Signup month.

[54:20] Um, that's the lower left-hand corner, and then we still have

[54:23] Grogu

[54:23] on our other library cards that you can get as well.

[54:27] Um, both of them have the wallet and the key card.

[54:30] Uh, this month if you come in to get a new library card, like you

[54:34] haven't had one before at the library.

[54:36] You can enter in to win Booknooks or some Legos.

[54:39] Uh, we bought some for those people getting cards or you, if

[54:42] you already have a card, you can refer someone.

[54:44] And if they come in and say, hey, Nicole Terry came told me to come

[54:47] get a card,

[54:48] then that person's name will go in for a drawing as well.

[54:52] So, um, a couple things to get some people in and interested

[54:54] and we'll be posting about it.

[54:56] We also have spotlights of avid library users up on our Facebook

[54:59] page who are talking about why they

[55:01] um, cherish and use their

[55:03] library. So if you're interested, check that out.

[55:07] Who can get a library card?

[55:09] So at our library, anyone can throughout the whole state of Iowa.

[55:13] However, we do prioritize our Newton residents,

[55:16] so we have 8,127 Newton residents.

[55:19] We have just over 2,000 rural residents

[55:22] and we have an agreement with the Jasper County

[55:24] Board of supervisors to provide library services to them

[55:27] along with all the other libraries in the county

[55:28] who do the same thing.

[55:30] We have 99 Lambs Grove residents,

[55:32] we have a 28E with Lambs Grove to provide those services.

[55:36] And then just two years ago, the board opened it up

[55:39] that all teachers in Jasper County can get a library card

[55:42] because we know a lot of school libraries are closing

[55:44] or they have limited items,

[55:46] so we're opening that to all teachers in Jasper County

[55:48] to come and check out as many items as they want

[55:50] for their classroom or professional development.

[55:53] And then we have about a thousand residents that are

[55:56] in cities throughout the state of Iowa,

[55:58] so if you live in Baxter, you can get a card through Newton,

[56:01] but you have a different level of service,

[56:03] so you're not getting the same services as Newton residents

[56:05] and we get a percentage of that reimbursed through the state

[56:08] because we offer it to your other services.

[56:11] So open access can come in and attend a program.

[56:14] They can check out books, but they can't use Libby,

[56:17] they have to go through their own library for that,

[56:19] they can't place holds or request materials.

[56:21] So that's some of those levels of services that differentiate.

[56:25] Um and then this last year we also did

[56:27] um change our programming to where you had to have

[56:29] a library card to get first dibs.

[56:31] Um a lot of our programming gets filled up right away

[56:34] and we were noticing we were having people from Demoin,

[56:37] Pella, um sign up and come and they didn't have library cards

[56:40] and we really wanted to prioritize if you have

[56:42] a library card, you get first dibs, so

[56:44] um it helped our numbers a little bit.

[56:46] Um and trying to prioritize those who pay more

[56:49] for the services should get more of the services.

[56:54] Physical circulation, um I always put the last couple years

[56:56] so we can kind of see the trend.

[56:58] Um we are almost double what we were in 2021,

[57:01] which is coming off the tail end of COVID.

[57:04] Uh we used to average about 115,000 physical

[57:07] circulations back pre-COVID.

[57:10] And so this is the first year we've broken over 100 again,

[57:13] um and I believe that the last time we hit that was 2018.

[57:17] So about we're up 10% in circulation altogether.

[57:21] Kits and games are exploding, um so we're seeing

[57:23] a lot of those go out.

[57:25] And um RSBP talked earlier, a lot of their volunteers

[57:28] help us count those kits and games, so every kit

[57:30] that comes back and game we check for all the pieces,

[57:33] make sure everything's there, so when it goes to the next

[57:35] resident, um they can play the game or do the stem

[57:38] appropriately.

[57:40] So they are a lifesaver in that because it's a very tedious

[57:42] um task.

[57:47] Digital circulation, uh continues to go up,

[57:50] we've seen 17% increase.

[57:52] Um audiobooks are continuing to explode,

[57:54] it's our number one requested format.

[57:57] Magazines, you can download anytime as many as you want,

[58:00] everyone can download the same magazine at once,

[58:02] but all those other formats we're limited to say,

[58:04] um a limit 12 months of the new James Patterson

[58:07] or we can only have 100 checkouts of it before we have

[58:09] to buy it again.

[58:12] Uh audiobooks are also the most expensive on the digital format,

[58:15] so they're averaging about $100 a pop and when you're only

[58:17] getting a limited amount of checkouts, we just can't keep

[58:21] up with the demand.

[58:23] So we have a limited budget that we spend on it and we

[58:26] prioritize the holds um on those items.

[58:30] So like yester year, right now it's 24 holds,

[58:33] we bought a copy of that, we actually have two copies of it.

[58:36] Um but just to kind of go over some of those numbers in 2020,

[58:39] this last year, 2026, Libby had 284 new users

[58:42] out of the Newton card holders and we had 6,448 unique

[58:46] Newton card holders downloading.

[58:51] Um so that's just our town and then if you to uh separate

[58:54] that out across the whole state, you're going up to

[58:57] against all those residents downloading.

[59:00] So right now the average weight time is about 50 days

[59:03] for those hot titles, like yester year,

[59:06] um but you can place 10 holds at a time and they'll come in.

[59:11] [cough]

[59:13] Uh and so right now with Newton card holders alone, we have uh

[59:16] 1,231 holds on audiobooks and 669 on ebooks.

[59:21] So there's no way that we can actually keep up with the demand,

[59:24] but we are putting money into that each year to make sure

[59:26] that we are getting um books to our patrons in a timely

[59:29] manner as much as we can.

[59:31] And the digital accounts for 25% of our circulation.

[59:34] And if you haven't heard of Dungeon Crawler Carl,

[59:37] he's huge, he's everywhere.

[59:39] Um we've bought two copies um for the library of hard cover

[59:41] and paperback because they came out in paperback first

[59:44] and then now hard cover.

[59:47] Um I wanted to say something else about that, but I'm

[59:50] forgetting it at the moment, so we will move on.

[59:53] Oh, that's what I want to mention.

[59:54] Most of the time, if you put a hold on a digital copy,

[59:57] um you might have that 50-day weight,

[59:59] the book is generally on the shelf and the

[1:00:02] library.

[1:00:03] So, um, I know people want to read on their tablet on the go, listen in their car.

[1:00:08] But if you're really antsy to get a title

[1:00:11] and you don't want to wait those 50 days,

[1:00:13] there's a good chance you can call the library and get the book within a week.

[1:00:15] Um, because they're just on the shelf and people are reading them

[1:00:19] and returning them quickly and you're not fighting against the whole state to get that item.

[1:00:24] Collection size right now, we have 81,315 barcoded items.

[1:00:29] On an average year, we're getting in about 4500 items, we're deleting 4500 items.

[1:00:35] We have a limited amount of space,

[1:00:37] so every item that comes in another item has to go.

[1:00:40] Um, and so you'll see us, uh, having books for sale,

[1:00:43] um, we try to sell them all so they don't end up in the landfill, but

[1:00:47] On average, we're ordering quite a bit every day.

[1:00:50] uh, Phillis and I are putting in orders on through our vendor on the daily,

[1:00:54] and we're cataloging each day so that number is in flux.

[1:00:57] It's constantly increasing, decreasing

[1:00:58] depending on what we're putting into the collection.

[1:01:01] Digital collection size is the same. We're adding stuff all the time across the state.

[1:01:05] Um, I just purchased this last two months for the state for their adult fiction titles.

[1:01:11] Um, my budget was $5,000, that only gets you about 50 items.

[1:01:15] for the whole state.

[1:01:16] And then they have another budget to buy, you know, 50 copies of the book.

[1:01:20] I was just picking the titles.

[1:01:22] So, um, in our collection we added 116 this last year with our funds

[1:01:26] and we discarded 52 because they reached their amount of circulations

[1:01:30] or timeframe that they would be up for circulation.

[1:01:32] Um, I do get a report every time one of our titles is expiring

[1:01:36] so I can choose to buy it again if it still has holds.

[1:01:39] And our titles that we do buy and say,

[1:01:41] we buy yester year in six months, no one else wants to read it,

[1:01:44] I can open it to the state to then use.

[1:01:46] Um, so that way we're getting the full use of our money throughout the state

[1:01:50] and our our users.

[1:01:52] Um, our library card has access to 254,062 free items.

[1:01:57] So when people say I can't find anything to read on Libby.

[1:02:00] I want to say you're not looking hard enough.

[1:02:02] There's a lot of titles to down there. There's a lot of items in the library.

[1:02:05] There's always something to read while you wait for your hold to come in.

[1:02:11] Library interactions. So I break it down into door count.

[1:02:13] But interactions, you know, we are happening on our website, um, through Facebook.

[1:02:18] We're getting lots of questions.

[1:02:20] So, um, we had 68,000 people come in this last year, 21% increase in our door count.

[1:02:26] Um, our meeting room uses were at 4086, 261 for the conference room.

[1:02:31] 9,000 internet station sessions, and then 7,753 Wi-Fi logins.

[1:02:38] So with those interactions, you have people coming in to read the newspaper.

[1:02:41] A lot of people coming in to just print really fast off their phone and do mobile printing, um,

[1:02:47] we have job help. So on that, what is it?

[1:02:50] We had 50 hours in last year, or 500 hours since we've started it.

[1:02:54] um, of people coming in and doing one-on-one sign ups with Becca to get

[1:02:59] help making a resume, applying for a job, that sort of thing.

[1:03:03] Um, so there's a lot going on at the library.

[1:03:05] Door count is just one of those markers that we use to kind of see what we're averaging.

[1:03:12] Information statistics, uh, we have just a few databases left.

[1:03:17] Um, our two that we did have were ancestry.com and I will legal forms.

[1:03:21] Ancestry is really pushing their use for users to use at home because you can save your tree,

[1:03:27] you can message your family members, you can continue to grow that tree.

[1:03:31] When you use it in the library, you can't save anything.

[1:03:34] So you can only look things up, save them by printing them, um,

[1:03:37] and continue to build it in paper.

[1:03:38] So we just see a huge decline, um, in the use of way of the way ancestry is being used.

[1:03:44] I will legal forms, we keep because it's a good starting point for legal questions.

[1:03:48] Um, and then we have our digital archive which is all of our yearbooks.

[1:03:52] And then we have our digital newspapers,

[1:03:55] which is everything of the Newton Daily News

[1:03:57] and also now the Kellogg newspapers, um, up to 2013.

[1:04:02] So we have the 1950s off being digitized right now.

[1:04:05] We realized we missed a few when we went up to 1975.

[1:04:08] So we have up to 2013, working on the 1950s right now.

[1:04:13] Um, and our microfilm computer actually just crashed

[1:04:16] and I'm waiting to fix it here in the next week,

[1:04:18] so it's really nice that we have it available online.

[1:04:21] So when people are coming in to get the microfilm, we're like,

[1:04:23] did you know you can go online?

[1:04:24] You can search by family name instead of scrolling through 10 microfilm reels.

[1:04:29] So the use of that is really increasing.

[1:04:31] We're seeing a lot of increase of people from overseas doing their family research as well.

[1:04:35] and bringing them to Newton for our newspaper articles. So it's kind of interesting.

[1:04:39] [cough]

[1:04:41] Um, reference transactions and this last year we had almost 25,000 questions

[1:04:46] answered at the desk.

[1:04:47] And that ranges anywhere from like, how do I apply for this job?

[1:04:50] How do I print my Amazon, um, return label

[1:04:54] to more in-depth genealogy questions

[1:04:56] or just something as simple of like, do you have this book?

[1:04:59] Can you get it for me?

[1:05:00] So, uh, huge

[1:05:02] across the board of questions,

[1:05:04] um that we see each day,

[1:05:05] tech help.

[1:05:06] A lot of Libby questions,

[1:05:08] a lot of how do I use my phone?

[1:05:10] There's a big disconnect

[1:05:12] between um people coming in

[1:05:15] and just saying,

[1:05:16] "Here, I don't know how to use it,

[1:05:19] you fix it for me."

[1:05:21] And we're like, um, we don't know how to use your phone either.

[1:05:26] They are tailored to each individual person.

[1:05:29] Uh, but we try to help them as much as we can, while still respecting

[1:05:35] privacy and the need of all the other patrons that are at the desk.

[1:05:41] And then we did 266 notary stamps over the last year.

[1:05:47] And so, just kind of putting in that graph to show you

[1:05:50] that everything's trending up or staying similar.

[1:05:52] Um, we're not really having anything that's going down.

[1:05:55] If we do have a service that's going down like ancestry.com,

[1:05:58] we really evaluate and make sure that we don't need it or we try

[1:06:02] to advertise it more to make sure that people who need it are accessing it.

[1:06:07] Children programs and events, so over the last from July 1st,

[1:06:10] 2025 to June 30th, 2026, we had 369 programs for children,

[1:06:14] um with 17,956 attendees.

[1:06:19] So all these pictures are from over this summer

[1:06:22] of our summer reading program.

[1:06:24] Um, I have like a couple pictures with the same staff.

[1:06:27] We just have some photographic babies in there.

[1:06:30] And then we had Pete the Cat at the kickoff.

[1:06:32] Lots of snakes, lots of bats, lots of reptiles.

[1:06:34] I don't know why people love those,

[1:06:36] but um they're always a big bringer in for the kids.

[1:06:39] So,

[1:06:41] Summer reading program, we had 809 children registered

[1:06:44] this last summer, 415 complete,

[1:06:46] so that's over half, which I think is a great statistic.

[1:06:49] We're keeping them involved throughout the summer,

[1:06:52] and they read 124,000 minutes or 2,080 hours

[1:06:55] just in those eight weeks of summer alone.

[1:06:59] So we still have kids coming in that whole month of August,

[1:07:02] but this is just those eight weeks that we're tracking their use and reading.

[1:07:07] Um, 583 attended story times in June and July.

[1:07:11] Um, 3,294 children attended the special programs in June and July.

[1:07:16] 650 at the kickoff, which was sponsored by Van Hemmert Family Dentistry.

[1:07:20] And then the Mermaids and Moana, which we partner with

[1:07:23] the Parks Department to have.

[1:07:25] And that is our highest attendee event every year with 620 kids.

[1:07:29] So.

[1:07:30] That one the last day our phone is ringing off the hook

[1:07:34] with people trying to find tickets and it's uh it's crazy.

[1:07:39] Uh, we do have year-round children's programs though, so we have

[1:07:42] Monday baby storytime, Tuesday toddler and twos.

[1:07:44] Thursday preschool storytime.

[1:07:46] Our story times are exploding.

[1:07:48] We used to have about six kids at each one on average, now we're having 20.

[1:07:52] So we're having to increase our crafts, we're having volunteers help us out.

[1:07:55] When P is gone,

[1:07:57] some of the moms have taken it up on themselves to lead

[1:08:00] a story time because they find it as a networking social group

[1:08:02] to support one another.

[1:08:04] So we always make sure we have a couple books out

[1:08:06] and the scarves or the balls

[1:08:07] so the moms can read

[1:08:09] and do the same story time if P happens to be sick

[1:08:11] or is out on for something.

[1:08:14] Um, she also does a lot of outreach, so she goes out to the Y daycare,

[1:08:18] all the daycares in the city, she goes to the schools

[1:08:21] and helps the teachers and do story times there.

[1:08:23] Um, she's been going out to the County Conservation building

[1:08:26] to do story times and partnering with programs there, which is great.

[1:08:29] Um, and then of course we have a lot of people come into

[1:08:32] our story times to do guest sponsors.

[1:08:34] So we've had advantage Credit Union.

[1:08:37] Um, a lot of the dentists in the area, and then we've had

[1:08:39] this last week we had the fire department out.

[1:08:42] We expected 50 kids. I think we had 150 kids.

[1:08:46] So it was a big showing and we're looking forward to October

[1:08:48] when they come back again.

[1:08:52] Some more programs that we have is of course the story walk that

[1:08:56] we switch out every month to keep it interesting.

[1:08:58] Um, we also have the 1,000 books before kindergarten program.

[1:09:02] So we have 403 enrolled right now, 156 total finishers.

[1:09:06] So 156,000 books read by those finishers.

[1:09:10] However, we have a lot that fall out after 500, 700.

[1:09:14] So you could probably double that number and that's how many

[1:09:17] books the kids are reading in Newton right now.

[1:09:20] And that's my little guy finishing his 1,000 books.

[1:09:23] So. [laughter] Good job.

[1:09:24] Um, and then we did the summer snack for kids, RSVP was

[1:09:27] a huge help, we had a couple other volunteers as well.

[1:09:29] To hand out those daily all through June, July and August.

[1:09:33] 822, 940 in July and then August, it did taper off a little bit.

[1:09:38] We did put a sign up at the Splashpad and that brought in a lot

[1:09:41] of new people that wouldn't normally come in.

[1:09:44] And we were lenient if they're just coming in for the snack,

[1:09:47] they could dip in in their wet swimsuits and run

[1:09:49] right back out with their snack.

[1:09:52] So, um it was great to see a lot of happy kids over the summer.

[1:09:57] And then I always just like to show pictures of our

[1:10:00] children's area because everyone always thinks libraries are

[1:10:01] quiet. You have to be quiet.

[1:10:02] We're going to shush you.

[1:10:03] Um, if you're screaming, yes, we're gonna shush you.

[1:10:06] But we also want you to come in and enjoy our children's area.

[1:10:09] So we invested a lot of time in that, making it a place where on a day

[1:10:13] that it's 98, you want to get out of the house, where do you go?

[1:10:15] Go to the library with air conditioning where there's

[1:10:17] new toys for your kids to play with.

[1:10:19] You can check out a couple books, attend a story time.

[1:10:22] Same thing in winter, if you want to get out, it's super cold but you

[1:10:24] don't want to go to the metro.

[1:10:26] Come into the library, play with our LEGO table, our trains,

[1:10:29] um, jumbo magnetiles, we have dinosaurs that you can build.

[1:10:32] So there's a lot of stuff over there that we keep rotating out to keep

[1:10:36] things fresh and keep kids entertained.

[1:10:38] [cough]

[1:10:40] Adult programs and events.

[1:10:42] Um, we had 167 programs this year, averaging about three per week.

[1:10:46] 966 uh in the winter reading program and

[1:10:50] 1500, um, a little bit over 1500 in summer reading program.

[1:10:54] That was another record summer number.

[1:10:56] Um, she had 9,924 people attend programs over the

[1:11:01] last year. So big numbers.

[1:11:03] Um, we have a lot of painting classes, a lot of plant swaps.

[1:11:06] We do a lot of partnerships with the plant dealer.

[1:11:09] We have our tiny art show coming up in October.

[1:11:13] And so this time we did a Halloween themed one.

[1:11:15] So they all have spooky um themes going along with the artwork.

[1:11:19] And you can buy those and all the money is going to be donated to Lucy's

[1:11:22] Pet Pantry for um the art that's purchased.

[1:11:28] Uh, Becca made this infographic to show off her amazing work.

[1:11:31] So, um, like I said, 167 programs this last year, over 9,000 attending.

[1:11:36] Um, her mystery bags and craft kits which are huge.

[1:11:39] They go out. We have 50 about each month.

[1:11:41] People will bring us at when it opens at nine,

[1:11:43] by usually about 10:30 it's filled.

[1:11:46] Um, and so, um, it's a great craft kit, but it's also getting our books out.

[1:11:51] So we have over 1600 books that have gone out in those mystery bags.

[1:11:54] They are patrons that just ask us for recommendations now

[1:11:57] because they liked the books they got in the mystery bags.

[1:11:59] And now they've been alerted to another service

[1:12:02] that we offer is recommending books, of course.

[1:12:05] Um, and so we partner a lot with uh businesses and so she's had

[1:12:08] 21 different program partnerships.

[1:12:12] Um, 80 plus hours of resume, job application and career assistance.

[1:12:16] Um, so it's a great infographic to give out and hand out

[1:12:19] to people that don't know what programs we're offering.

[1:12:24] This year we added new mobile shelving that was funded by the library foundation.

[1:12:28] So on that first picture in the top left, uh, you'll see the boxes coming in.

[1:12:33] And then I didn't put a picture of the shelves.

[1:12:35] They look pretty similar, they're just on wheels.

[1:12:37] So we can move them out of the way

[1:12:39] and we can use that whole center area now for a program.

[1:12:42] So we've had the magician during Newton Fest.

[1:12:44] We've had um a baby story time over there with the umbrella

[1:12:46] that was in a previous picture.

[1:12:49] And then this last week we had Ghost Towns of Jasper County.

[1:12:53] We had 240 people come.

[1:12:54] We pulled every chair in the entire library into that middle area.

[1:12:59] Um, we still did have lanes to get through. You can't see it too well,

[1:13:03] but we did have make sure that you could get out if there's an emergency.

[1:13:06] Um, so that was quite a showing.

[1:13:09] We did have a dip in programming, um, about two years ago in adult,

[1:13:12] and I think it's because we maxed out our space.

[1:13:15] Same with our children, we are hearing a lot from people that

[1:13:17] I don't want to come, it's too crowded, it gets too hot in that room.

[1:13:20] You know, I don't want to bring my kids to the bug show because

[1:13:22] there's just too many people.

[1:13:24] We can't see it and experience it like we want.

[1:13:26] So we took that to heart. We got some mobile shelving and we

[1:13:29] and we opened up that bigger space.

[1:13:31] So now we have smaller programs in the meeting room

[1:13:34] and we put the bigger ones into the um main area of the library.

[1:13:39] And we haven't had any complaints. We advertise

[1:13:41] when it's going to be there, it's going to be loud,

[1:13:42] there's going to be music events.

[1:13:43] Um, everyone really enjoys it.

[1:13:45] And I think we've had we've had record numbers of attendance

[1:13:49] because people know that there's a little bit more space now

[1:13:51] to that you can breathe and it's cooler.

[1:13:55] So some of our popular programs are of course the swaps,

[1:13:58] we do the book swap, plants.

[1:13:59] We're doing another toy swap in November.

[1:14:03] Um, and then we did a puzzle sale.

[1:14:05] A lot of paint classes, a lot of plant classes with the plant dealer.

[1:14:09] And then those mystery bags

[1:14:11] and then the one that brings a lot of people is the

[1:14:13] as the historical speakers.

[1:14:15] So we always have a few of those planned and we have more

[1:14:17] coming up throughout the year.

[1:14:22] Um, I always put this slide in of how stellar's our programming.

[1:14:24] So compared with the other libraries in the state of Iowa

[1:14:27] with a population of 10,000 to 25,000,

[1:14:30] we're number one in kids age 6 to 11 program attendance.

[1:14:34] Number two in programming attendance geared towards adults.

[1:14:37] And number five in total program attendance.

[1:14:39] So some of those libraries that were competing against

[1:14:42] are Altoona, Coralville, Grimes, Indianola, Johnston,

[1:14:46] North Liberty, Pleasant Hill and Waukee.

[1:14:49] And so to beat them out in program attendance, I think

[1:14:51] speaks volumes of what our staff is doing.

[1:14:54] And really tailoring the interests of our community to get people to come in.

[1:15:00] And I just put in another graph to show you, it just keeps going up

[1:15:03] and like I said, we had that little dip in adult programming,

[1:15:06] and I think it just came down to um, the limited space that we had,

[1:15:10] and now that we've opened it up,

[1:15:11] we're going to keep going right back up.

[1:15:16] And then of course, we always have more.

[1:15:18] We're not just programs, we're not just books.

[1:15:19] Um, we have board games for all ages, we're continually adding ones.

[1:15:23] Um, we're working with Kraken's Crate to kind of keep on top of

[1:15:25] the new fads.

[1:15:26] Um, and make sure that we have a good collection rotating

[1:15:29] in and out.

[1:15:31] Stem kits, we're always adding a few of those each year.

[1:15:34] They are kind of expensive, so um we only add a handful each year to

[1:15:38] make sure um, we're getting a fresh um, supply.

[1:15:42] And then we have the photo and video digitisation station

[1:15:45] where you can um, turn those old Kodachrome, um, Polaroids,

[1:15:49] you know, the little tiny ones, and digitise those to keep your

[1:15:52] families, um, memories alive.

[1:15:55] And we show you how to do it. After that, you can come in

[1:15:57] anytime and get the items at the desk and just

[1:15:59] go over and sit and um, convert DVDs to digital,

[1:16:02] VHS to digital, all of those formats.

[1:16:07] We have laminating. We just purchased a new laminator.

[1:16:09] Old one was like 20 years old,

[1:16:11] and underneath of it, you can see all of those die cuts and

[1:16:13] accu cuts that you can check out.

[1:16:14] We have about four different alphabets,

[1:16:17] so teachers, we have any design that you want.

[1:16:20] Um, that you want to cut out to make a bulletin board or

[1:16:22] hand out a bookmark. We have everything.

[1:16:26] Um, and then we also have a blood pressure cuff and radon detectors.

[1:16:29] So I looked those up the other day. They've gone out to

[1:16:31] 46 homes already.

[1:16:33] We have five. We can't even keep them in.

[1:16:35] There's usually a list of five to eight people waiting to get them.

[1:16:38] They go out for three weeks because you want to have a

[1:16:40] long reading in your home of what your radon level is.

[1:16:44] because I just put mine in my new home

[1:16:46] and it was reading at like 26

[1:16:48] and I panicked and now it's come down a lot.

[1:16:51] Um, and so we still might have to be have follow up on if

[1:16:53] we need to have our house checked out, but

[1:16:55] It's saving a lot of people a lot of money

[1:16:58] instead of calling a professional right off the bat, you can check

[1:17:00] these out and see if you need to enlist a professional.

[1:17:03] And we hand out information from the State Health Department to

[1:17:05] follow up on those professionals or get a reading.

[1:17:11] Uh, we always want to do a shout out to our friends,

[1:17:13] um, of the Newton Public Library

[1:17:14] so they ran run the little library or little friends,

[1:17:17] aka Imagination Library from Dolly Parton.

[1:17:21] Um, they have 950 enrolled right now.

[1:17:23] They've been here for five years now, so they've reached their

[1:17:26] first graduating class

[1:17:28] and have had over 900 graduates.

[1:17:31] So, um, they've been here a whole full cycle.

[1:17:33] Um, they've had a good turnout of it.

[1:17:36] Um, and so they are looking for donations with Dolly's passing,

[1:17:39] just trying to keep it going for all those kids.

[1:17:43] Um, the books come to them for free, but the friends pay,

[1:17:45] uh, the organization pays the postage to mail those out

[1:17:48] to the kids.

[1:17:50] So that's where they look for donations to keep it going

[1:17:52] as for the postage.

[1:17:54] Adventure passes. The friends have purchased another one.

[1:17:57] Right now we have two to Blank Park Zoo,

[1:17:59] you have the Science Center, the Botanical Gardens.

[1:18:02] I believe we bought a third Zoo one.

[1:18:04] So in the summer when we have like a really heavy use, um,

[1:18:07] three families can be going multiple times a week to the zoo.

[1:18:11] And then we have our first grade tours that they fund and those

[1:18:13] will be coming up in October.

[1:18:15] And RSVP also helps, um, to lead those with some volunteers

[1:18:17] for the day as we have a lot of kids come through.

[1:18:23] And then our Library Foundation funds all of our programming.

[1:18:27] So all those programs that we have for the craft kits, um,

[1:18:29] the supplies needed for the storytime crafts,

[1:18:33] um, those historical speakers or the plant dealer coming in,

[1:18:36] the foundation funds all of that.

[1:18:38] So they are a huge saver, um, um, and getting us to allow us

[1:18:41] to buy such, um, great presenters to come in.

[1:18:47] And then they also are funding our Wonderbooks.

[1:18:49] So they gave us 3,000 this year to replenish our Wonderbook collection.

[1:18:52] It's a book that reads you the audio book while you follow

[1:18:54] along in the physical book.

[1:18:57] So there's a lot of learning aspects for that. And then at the

[1:18:59] end, it can ask you questions about the book.

[1:19:01] So, um, you can have your kid answer those and listen to

[1:19:04] tidbits on the non-fiction book. It'll give you more history--

[1:19:07] uh, not historical, but more information.

[1:19:10] Uh, and then we, they funded the Spring Break movie this last year,

[1:19:12] which had 326 attendees over two showings.

[1:19:16] And of course, they've digitised all of our newspapers up to 2013

[1:19:20] and the Kellogg newspapers that were donated recently.

[1:19:22] So those will all be available soon.

[1:19:28] Um, and then I just want to end on uh, one of our slides that

[1:19:30] I added this year is that

[1:19:31] libraries will get you through times of no money better than

[1:19:34] money will get you through times of no libraries.

[1:19:37] Libraries are known to extend your dollar of every tax dollar spent

[1:19:39] in the community.

[1:19:41] So, Newton residents paid $47.43 for library services in FY25.

[1:19:47] Um, what that would get you if you went to the store,

[1:19:49] Barnes & Noble, is two adult fiction books.

[1:19:53] one and a half adult non-fiction, 2.5 teen books, or

[1:19:55] 2.5 children's picture books.

[1:19:58] That's all it would get you for

[1:20:00] a whole year for your family.

[1:20:02] But you can go to the library and you can turn that $47 into

[1:20:06] thousands of savings.

[1:20:07] So the bottom right is my um, slip from today.

[1:20:11] checked out one teen book and I've saved $5,000 just by checking out books

[1:20:15] from the library.

[1:20:16] and those are all children's books.

[1:20:18] I'm a big Libby user for myself.

[1:20:20] So that's just children's books for my little guy.

[1:20:23] And then we had another staff member who on average reads one book a month,

[1:20:27] has one or two checkouts a month, which is kind of a normal Newton resident user

[1:20:31] and she's still saved $1,200 by using her library card.

[1:20:36] So, looking at what you pay for library services as a Newton resident,

[1:20:39] and what you can get out of it is a huge cost savings,

[1:20:42] especially when you look at that number and say, that doesn't include Libby.

[1:20:46] So all those books I listen to, that number doesn't go into that, that's only

[1:20:49] physical checkouts.

[1:20:51] And then it doesn't include the programs we have, the job assistance we provide,

[1:20:55] all the staff assisting patrons, printing, applying for jobs, just doing the normal

[1:21:00] day-to-day stuff on the computers.

[1:21:02] internet, printing, technology, and then also heating and cooling.

[1:21:05] We have residents who come in to enjoy the air conditioning in the heat

[1:21:08] in the very hot months and the very cold months so they can save on their

[1:21:12] um expenses at home.

[1:21:14] So all that is wrapped into that $47 that Newton residents pay for a year.

[1:21:19] So, with that,

[1:21:21] um, I want to say thank you on behalf of myself and the library board.

[1:21:26] um, and then leave you with a beautiful picture of the blue roof.

[1:21:28] [laughter]

[1:21:31] So, any questions?

[1:21:33] Any questions or comments for Nicole?

[1:21:35] No questions. Uh, thank you for what you do and certainly the rest of the

[1:21:38] library staff and all the volunteers, um.

[1:21:41] What an excellent facility. Uh, again, it was just a no-brainer.

[1:21:44] Um, one of the main reasons why I chose Newton nearly ten full years ago.

[1:21:49] Um, because it's like, yeah, it helped us get connected and utilize the library.

[1:21:52] Um, uh,

[1:21:53] and have our daughter enjoy all of the things and all of the programs.

[1:21:57] and as uh, Karen and I continue to age,

[1:21:59] undoubtedly, we will uh, continue to use the library and and hopefully someday,

[1:22:03] Lord Willing, be able to volunteer a little bit more around there.

[1:22:06] So, thanks for everything.

[1:22:07] I don't know how people are bored in this town, uh, with the library, uh, as

[1:22:12] probably the pinnacle of activities year round that are available.

[1:22:16] Right? So, thank you.

[1:22:19] clearly there's a lot of people who use it already, but I wish every resident in this

[1:22:23] town knew exactly what you could do at the library.

[1:22:27] Because I don't think a lot of them do or or realize what you provide and what

[1:22:31] you offer and the amount of things that you have that that you can do there.

[1:22:39] Uh, yeah, so I was not like an avid reader or anything like that.

[1:22:43] My wife was always the one that was always doing the stuff.

[1:22:46] But this over the last like year, year and a half, like, I've trained myself

[1:22:51] to start using the library more.

[1:22:53] and um, yeah, it's phenomenal.

[1:22:55] Like, you guys do incredible.

[1:22:58] People who maybe don't know that much about the library need to do some more

[1:23:03] looking at the library because of how fantastic it is.

[1:23:06] and everybody there that does an awesome job.

[1:23:09] [laughter]

[1:23:11] How do we go about setting up story time with Jeff?

[1:23:14] [laughter] Oh, I know it's free! Bro, that is fun.

[1:23:16] I saw that. Yes!

[1:23:18] I have a blast doing that.

[1:23:20] I was like, Jeff has gotten compliments from the U services librarian that he

[1:23:23] is a great story time leader.

[1:23:25] Yeah, I have a good time.

[1:23:26] We're like mentally the same age and we just connect a lot.

[1:23:36] Thanks Nicole, nice job.

[1:23:38] [paper shuffling]

[1:23:39] So, now we will roll into

[1:23:42] [sound]

[1:23:44] item number 32 for this evening,

[1:23:48] which is Mayor and Council comments.

[1:23:51] Council, we will start with you this evening.

[1:23:53] [rustling paper]

[1:23:58] I mean, hey, I will throw it out there.

[1:24:00] Uh, I am to talk a little bit more about the library. You know, we had the passing

[1:24:05] of of Miss Miss Dolly Parton.

[1:24:07] And uh, I have two children, uh,

[1:24:11] my first was uh, my oldest boy was four and a half when we moved here.

[1:24:16] Um, and so, uh, the town that I lived in had the Dolly Parton Library, uh, where

[1:24:22] they sent you books every month.

[1:24:23] And I thought, oh my gosh, this is awesome.

[1:24:26] Like, it was so cool.

[1:24:28] Um, and then at the time Newton did not have that.

[1:24:30] Luckily I had all the all the books from the first kids. So, I was fine.

[1:24:35] Um, just, you know, with that, uh, you know, with that, uh, you know, her passing and what before that

[1:24:43] vision of providing all those books to kids and now being able to offer

[1:24:46] those in Newton is just excellent.

[1:24:49] one of my favorites.

[1:24:54] Yeah, so, uh,

[1:24:56] I haven't got- hadn't had a chance to drive by, but the splash pad.

[1:25:00] restrooms in. Looks nice.

[1:25:02] Glad it's there. We got a little bit of time left, I saw some people still there.

[1:25:06] Uh, as I drove through, didn't see didn't see didn't look that close to the restroom.

[1:25:09] Um, so in two weeks we've got our budget, our goal setting coming up.

[1:25:14] So a couple of things I wanted to kind of throw out there.

[1:25:17] If you haven't had a chance to drive by and look at some of these things.

[1:25:20] So I know there's a long list of things.

[1:25:21] But a couple I want to bring to your attention.

[1:25:23] So, uh, the sidewalk on the 12th street, so it comes from Sacred Heart Church.

[1:25:27] That's one of the projects is looking at, how do we put a sidewalk along there?

[1:25:30] We've had multiple incidents of people in electric scooters.

[1:25:33] And chairs going down through that road.

[1:25:36] So drive by and take a look and see what.

[1:25:39] We've got there. There's a big vacant spot. We don't have any sidewalk.

[1:25:41] You can look at how narrow the street is, amount of traffic.

[1:25:44] Uh, the other road I guess what have you look at is drive the.

[1:25:47] Gravel road that goes out to our waste treatment facility.

[1:25:52] If you haven't been, I know we go out there, but drive on it. Take a look at it. Look at it really well.

[1:25:56] It's an old road that we've used millions and millions of miles probably over the years.

[1:26:01] Never had any service.

[1:26:02] And if we have a goal of looking at, I know we have one separate project.

[1:26:05] To look at putting some money aside to just pave gravel roads in general.

[1:26:08] I would put that as a high priority because of the use that our city uses it.

[1:26:12] And the other one I'd like to highlight is, I know we've had folks come in here.

[1:26:16] Um, Mr. Farver talking about the gravel road.

[1:26:19] I think it's 8th, 7th Street hooks up to 8th Avenue, right there.

[1:26:22] Near the bottom over where the Baptist church is. We get a lot of rocks there.

[1:26:25] I'm encourage you to drive up that lane and look at it.

[1:26:29] Look at that road.

[1:26:31] Uh, as you drive up there, notice that where the gravel ends.

[1:26:34] There's the curb valve.

[1:26:36] There is all sorts of stuff this rose very small.

[1:26:38] There's lots of opportunity for improvement there.

[1:26:40] Those are three I just want to highlight that I think you get a chance.

[1:26:43] It's worth going and physically seeing and looking at them.

[1:26:46] And I think they're going to be a high priority for me. So, anyway.

[1:26:51] Good points. Thanks Stacy.

[1:26:53] Mr. Hallum.

[1:26:54] Nothing for the good of the order this evening.

[1:26:57] Mr. Stoman. Same.

[1:26:58] Mr. Rolls. Okay.

[1:27:00] Um, yeah, fire department, amazing, library, amazing.

[1:27:03] I just I'm just kind of in awe of all the things that you guys do.

[1:27:07] And how well you present what you do to us.

[1:27:11] Um, I was going to give a little update. I know last time I was at home, um,

[1:27:17] Listening and and speaking over the phone. But, um,

[1:27:21] So I did have some skin cancer, some melanoma on my face.

[1:27:24] Um, you'll be happy to know, I hope you know as I am that.

[1:27:27] Um, they got all of the cancer out.

[1:27:30] And uh they had to do a skin graph to um cover the the wound on my face.

[1:27:35] So that, but that should be healing.

[1:27:37] I don't have to go back to any surgeons or doctors.

[1:27:39] For like three months.

[1:27:41] So, it was kind of a scary thing, but

[1:27:43] Since I, since I said something about it at the last meeting.

[1:27:46] I thought I'd just give you all an update and um, so.

[1:27:48] Everything's going well with that.

[1:27:51] Good. Very good here.

[1:27:52] Mr. Mills.

[1:27:54] No further questions or comments. Thank you.

[1:27:57] Well, I've got a few things tonight I want to touch base on.

[1:28:00] Um, first of all, this morning I had an opportunity to teach.

[1:28:03] Uh, three classes at West Academy.

[1:28:06] Um, and it was interesting because they had asked me to talk about local.

[1:28:09] Politics and how the structure of city government works in Newton.

[1:28:14] Uh, but it was really neat to sit down and those kids were so attentive.

[1:28:19] And had so many good questions about why do we have a fire department?

[1:28:21] How does the fire department work?

[1:28:24] How does the city government as a whole work?

[1:28:29] Uh, they had a lot of questions when I asked them to try to explain.

[1:28:31] Economic development. They had no idea.

[1:28:34] Uh, but we talked about HR and we talked about how all that flows up.

[1:28:37] To our directors and then from our directors to our city administrator.

[1:28:41] And then to the role and the responsibilities of the mayor.

[1:28:44] And the city council.

[1:28:46] And ultimately explained to them that our bosses was them as citizens.

[1:28:50] Uh, but it was incredible to just sit and talk with the kids.

[1:28:53] At West Academy again today.

[1:28:55] They are really uh, some great kids and I know sometimes.

[1:28:58] Uh, West gets a little stigma to them because it's not the normal high school.

[1:29:04] But I tell you what, those kids today was very attentive.

[1:29:08] Had great questions and really looked forward to becoming voters.

[1:29:11] Voting members of our community.

[1:29:16] I have some positive news to pass along tonight.

[1:29:19] Uh, spoke with uh the executives today.

[1:29:23] Uh, there is a small group out of what's literally a mom and pop.

[1:29:27] Organization out of South Dakota.

[1:29:31] That has gleefully purchased KCOB.

[1:29:35] Shall KCOB AM FM and our FM station as well.

[1:29:41] Uh, the goal is by October 1st, and but sometime in October.

[1:29:44] That should go live again.

[1:29:46] Which is phenomenal news for the city of Newton.

[1:29:50] Uh, to have local news, to have local sports.

[1:29:53] I think we're probably too late for this year's football season.

[1:29:56] But hopefully basketball, baseball, next year's football.

[1:29:59] back on KCOB where it belongs.

[1:30:01] Also, we'll highlight.

[1:30:03] I know that I've uh uh spoken to them quite a bit extensively.

[1:30:07] to say, hey, the city supports this,

[1:30:10] and anything we can do, whether it's our get to know Newton

[1:30:12] program with Craig Armstrong,

[1:30:15] whether it's one-on-one discussions with the mayor or the city council.

[1:30:18] Whatever we can do to promote local news back on the radio,

[1:30:22] but that's fantastic news for the city.

[1:30:25] Hopefully you'll hear more about that.

[1:30:27] We spoke briefly about Bucky's earlier.

[1:30:29] Uh we did throw a group together. We are pursuing Bucky's

[1:30:32] along with 100 cities within 100 miles of Demoin.

[1:30:37] Uh in the initial talks with Bucky's, we are farther

[1:30:41] east than they would like to be.

[1:30:43] They would really like to be on that 3580 combination corridor.

[1:30:47] Uh between the East and West Mixmaster.

[1:30:49] That's where they would really like to be.

[1:30:51] Uh but um, we're not giving up.

[1:30:54] We're still staying in there, having some discussions.

[1:30:57] Uh again, thanks to the people that dropped their schedule, Craig Armstrong,

[1:31:02] uh, and actually uh Tom from uh Project Fastpitch joined us.

[1:31:07] Um along with the NASCAR representatives. And NASCAR

[1:31:11] also made calls, uh on our behalf on this project.

[1:31:14] So, it was it was nice to see a true partnership

[1:31:16] come together of that.

[1:31:17] I know Frank was there again with NDC,

[1:31:20] uh, and our city was well, well represented, so that's good to know.

[1:31:25] Matt and I, uh, last week, had an opportunity to go out to Newcore Rebar.

[1:31:31] Which if you've not been out there, what an awesome addition to

[1:31:34] our community.

[1:31:36] Um, I think Matt and I were both shocked at the efficiency

[1:31:39] and the safety of their programs.

[1:31:42] Uh, but also they're one of the few companies again that somebody

[1:31:46] can graduate in May and go to work in June, and they have some openings.

[1:31:51] And over the long course, uh, the pay is pretty good,

[1:31:53] but they also talked about an incentive program that they have

[1:31:58] that could be up to as much as 50% additional salary.

[1:32:02] So, uh, somebody 18, 19 years old that doesn't want to go to college,

[1:32:05] doesn't want to go to trade school,

[1:32:07] it's nice to have that local option where somebody can go to work.

[1:32:11] Uh, several people, uh, worked there with uh, people that,

[1:32:13] I mean, Lisa Fraser has a couple children working there.

[1:32:18] Uh, Hasdorfer has a child there.

[1:32:21] I mean, there's a lot of Newton connections, and Jasper

[1:32:23] County connections there,

[1:32:25] but what a great tour and uh it was pretty fascinating, I thought,

[1:32:29] to just see the things they do.

[1:32:32] Don't forget this Thursday night is a red and black bach party.

[1:32:35] Downtown Newton couldn't be prouder of that.

[1:32:37] We'll have uh the parade going on, it looks like it goes from

[1:32:40] DMac up to the square.

[1:32:42] And then we'll have the Pep Rally, uh, up on the square,

[1:32:45] I believe the parade starts at 6 o'clock.

[1:32:48] Something else new that I know we've talked earlier about some

[1:32:51] new activities that's coming down the line.

[1:32:52] I can't talk about this one enough.

[1:32:55] It's the and I make sure I get this title right,

[1:32:58] Landmark Arts Festival.

[1:33:01] Oh yes, yes.

[1:33:02] Wow. I mean, if you've seen the layout of the vendors

[1:33:04] that they have for this.

[1:33:05] This is the first year for this event.

[1:33:08] But I tell you what, uh, Rachel Brayfart and some of the other

[1:33:11] people that's really been working on this project.

[1:33:14] Um, it it's an amazing day.

[1:33:16] And for them to bring something like that to Newton, Iowa, I I highly

[1:33:20] suggest you put that on your calendar and try to make a visit

[1:33:22] because it's it's pretty cool event.

[1:33:25] And it's when?

[1:33:26] 19 September 19th.

[1:33:28] September 19th.

[1:33:29] on a Saturday.

[1:33:30] All day on the DMACC campus.

[1:33:32] And if you go on their Facebook site, they actually have a vendor list

[1:33:34] already that kind of blew me away.

[1:33:36] It's big and they've got a map on where the vendors are. They

[1:33:39] tried to get every art that they could think of.

[1:33:41] So some of it'll be visual art, some of it will be musical arts,

[1:33:45] Some of it will be food arts.

[1:33:47] Uh, but they tried to get all kinds of glass blowing,

[1:33:50] uh, different arts are represented at this at this, so

[1:33:54] Uh, what a what a highlight for our community.

[1:33:56] We should absolutely be all over this.

[1:34:00] With that, as always, uh it's a lot of fun.

[1:34:04] being in the city of Newton right now. We have a lot of exciting

[1:34:06] things going on.

[1:34:08] So, uh, thanks for everybody you do. Thanks again for our staff.

[1:34:13] Uh, we are wrapping up the open part of this meeting.

[1:34:18] So as always, go cards and God bless Newton.

[1:34:21] Do I have a motion to go into a closed session?

[1:34:25] So moved.

[1:34:26] Second.

[1:34:27] All those in favor? Oh no, we'd better take a roll call.

[1:34:31] Mills.

[1:34:32] Aye, here.

[1:34:33] Wolshue.

[1:34:33] Aye.

[1:34:34] Roth.

[1:34:36] Aye.

[1:34:36] Dalton.

[1:34:37] Aye.

[1:34:38] Hallen.

[1:34:39] Aye.

[1:34:40] Zimmer.

[1:34:41] Aye.

[1:34:42] And finally, Mr. Attorney, do we have the request and authority

[1:34:46] to go into close session?

[1:34:49] Yes, pursuant to Iowa Code chapter 21.5.1, you have a

[1:34:54] written authorization to go into close session.

[1:34:57] Okay, with that at 9:08, we will resume.

[1:35:02] Thank you everybody.

City Council Meeting 09-08-26 Part 2

Transcript