West Liberty, Iowa - Building Together
West Liberty, Iowa - Building Together
September 2023 - Stepping into Our Future: West Liberty's Heritage and Community Evolution
Join us for an enthralling journey as we bring together a vibrant ensemble of West Liberty's finest. Chief Werling steers the conversation by unveiling the latest police department updates, all the way from sprucing up the police squad cars to managing traffic issues. We also have the McFerrins, Clifford, Cara, and their son William, who walk us through their commendable heritage and community projects. And that's not all; local residents Cara Calvin McFerrin, Charles Brooke, Allie Paarsmith, and Stephanie Vallez share their unique perspectives on all things West Liberty.
This episode takes a fascinating detour as we indulge in the riveting tales of young William McFerron, who's been busy restoring a downtown steam engine. Prepare to be captivated as William recounts his adventures of firing up the engine last Halloween. We also dissect the ongoing changes in West Liberty, focusing on the growth of local businesses and the importance of walking and biking trails for improving our community's quality of life. Don't miss out as we discuss the Meadows and Dumont-Dutton subdivisions and the annexation of Wiele Chevrolet into the city!
Finally, we turn the spotlight to the annual Chamber of Commerce golf tournament and some fantastic changes brewing in our local library. Mark your calendars for the upcoming community events, including puppet shows at Rendezvous Park as part of the Children's Festival and the vibrant Fiesta Latina on Calhoun Street. We end on a high note with a profound conversation with Jack Kraus about the sense of community in West Liberty and the area's booming business growth. So tune in, sit back, and take a thorough tour of our beloved town!
Happy September and welcome to Building Together a podcast about how people, businesses, organizations and local government are working together to make the West Liberty area a better place in which to live, work, learn, grow and play. I'm Ken Brooks. I have the privilege of serving as the Executive Director for Welead, west Liberty Economic Area Development Corporation. I will introduce our panel in just a minute, but first the Building Together podcast is a service of Welead and is brought to you in part by West Liberty Auto Parts, the Goodfellas Club and listeners like you. For more information, visit wwwweleadiowaorg. All right, are you ready? Let's go Music. Happy September and welcome to Building Together. Let's go around the table and meet the panel Chief Whirling, eric.
Speaker 2:Whirling Chief of Police here in West Liberty.
Speaker 3:I'm Clifford McFerrin, Nursing Home Administrator and Heritage Foundation member.
Speaker 4:I'm William McFerrin, the son of Clifford McFerrin, and I'm just a child.
Speaker 5:Hello, my name is Kara Calvin McFerrin. I'm a local resident and a city council member.
Speaker 6:Charles Brooke, Chief Operating Officer of the West Liberty Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 7:Allie Parsmith, West Liberty Public Library Director.
Speaker 8:Stephanie Vellas, Local Resident and Puppeteer with Oil and Spiegel Puppet Theatre Company.
Speaker 1:I'm Ken Brooks, your host. I have the pleasure of being the Executive Director of Welead, the West Liberty Economic Area Development Corporation. Well, let's get down into it, chief, what's going on in your world?
Speaker 2:Well, we just did an interview for a new officer, since we're down one. Hopefully, if things work out, we'll be offering him a position soon. The second squad car that we ordered last year that I just got notified that was now in, so we're trying to do the paperwork to get that rolling, so that's going to be a pickup. Speaking of squad cars, we've been working on the design for our new squad cars with the local art teacher from the high school and with cardinal graphics. We're still working on that.
Speaker 1:The squad car we picked up a few months ago and the one that's on the way. Are they the same model?
Speaker 2:The newest one is going to be a pickup. The rest of them are going to look like the new one that everybody has seen. They're all going to be the same. And then I wanted one pickup, just so we can haul stuff. Yeah, so when we're putting out cones for an event or barricades, if we're going to the range, then we can have a vehicle to take that stuff in a transport without ruining it. Besides that, I did make cookies today. I know we've talked on previous podcasts about my baking, so I did bring in cookies. These have butterscotch chips, milk chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. I did something a little different, mixing all-purpose flour and cake flour, just to try something new. What's?
Speaker 1:the verdict.
Speaker 5:Delicious, pretty good, good, great Great.
Speaker 2:Yeah Williams I think he's on his three yeah Past that I wanted to say thank you for people that reached out. My dad passed away at the end of July at a lot of community members that reached out and that's helped a lot. So I do appreciate that and past that we're starting to gear up Halloween. I feel like it's going to be here before we know it.
Speaker 1:One of the amazing, one of the many amazing things that this community does, is the Haunted Trail, the Halloween Trail, on Halloween, out on the Heritage Foundation Trail. There we go, the Heritage Foundation Trail, and it's really neat how many local businesses and Organizations and individuals come out to staff that and the hundreds and hundreds of kids that come through the. The two years that I've been at it I've been huge. I think last year was even bigger than the year before and I was surprised. I was astonished by how many kids came down that trail. But it's really neat Because you get everything in one place. If you have younger children, from a parent's perspective it's nice. There's no one for nowhere for them to wander off to. It's kind of a straight line and the city provides pizza at the very end of it, right.
Speaker 3:It does yep treats and that's a police department thing, or is it a city thing?
Speaker 2:We get to start it off, so we usually start at the trail, so we are the ones that get to see everybody first.
Speaker 3:So that would be the city at the very end, yeah, and then the fire departments, usually at the end of that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah okay but yeah, it's a great, it's a great opportunity, it's great for the littler ones so that you don't have to, you know, run them around in different neighborhoods. You can walk down the trail once and that's probably. You're probably gonna get enough candy that you'll be done for the night. Oh, I, we have been doing a lot of school patrol. Since school has started back up and With the ELC building closing and all those students going over to the new portion of the elementary and then spending some time in the officers have been spending time watching, pick up and drop off, trying to help with the traffic congestion. You know, putting two buildings into one. There's been a Learning curve this year, so stopped and talked with mr Ryan. We made one little tweak Yesterday and it ran so much more smoothly. So I'm hoping that little tweak will be the fix that we need, that we can get people in and out safely and quickly.
Speaker 1:There have been people talking about it. Right, it's no secret, the first week or two of the school year Pickup is always a little rough anyway. But, like you said, now that everybody is all in one building We've got a lot more folks all in the same spot, but really glad to hear that things are turning around and looks like we're gonna have it under control here pretty soon. Absolutely All right, cliff.
Speaker 3:How are you? You know I'm not bad. Thank you for asking, ken. Let's see what's happened at the nursing home. Nursing home we actually had our annual survey when a state inspectors from the Department of Inspections and Appeals in licensing they now call themselves dial Didn't think it was very funny when I gave him a bar of soap when they came in. The doors kind of set the mood right there. So we had five inspectors come in and of those five they found things to be pretty well in order. A few minor paperwork things. Well, I think we did a really, really good job this year. The residents were very satisfied when they talked to the inspectors and that kind of set the tone. So after they had left, we haven't received all of our Final forms in the in the mail yet, but we decided to celebrate. We'd take everybody out residents, everybody roller skating and and we had. We had a great time, ken. Let me tell you. Right afterwards we stopped by at the hospital for free x-ray night.
Speaker 3:Because we had a few that needed some pictures, but overall I think they really had a good time this time?
Speaker 1:Is that like the booth where you go and you get your Polaroid taken? Yep.
Speaker 3:Yeah, pretty much just running the hips and the knees through. But I could tell you what some of those, some of those older folks, can really spin them. They can really spin them and they love that disco music. So it was a good time.
Speaker 1:How are things on the heritage foundation front.
Speaker 3:We're not bad. We have something exciting coming up September 9th Everybody mark this out on your calendar. September 9th, we're gonna have chainsaw day and we want everybody to come down. It has a chain saw. We're gonna clean up the trail, some of those fallen trees, prune stuff up for next year should be a good time.
Speaker 3:And Again, I think probably MS will be standing by, but you might not be necessary the Rotary Club will be grilling out. We're gonna start at 9 am and by noon will be growing grilling out there at the depot and people come down get something to eat. I think it'll be. It'd be nice. We're gonna be working also on some of the equipment there in the depot. Yeah, the campus, we have a barn that we're gonna be working on repairing. The tornado that came through town did move it a Little bit, so we're gonna be working on trying to get that Resquared up and then there'll probably be some painting and stuff for folks that want to help. But that's another reason why I invited the young man, as you can see, to my right that has been working on the the engine and I'll introduce him. William, why don't you say hello and tell everybody a little bit about what you're doing with the steam engine?
Speaker 4:Hi, so I'm a restoring, and what's your name first? Oh, I'm William McFerron and I'm holding. I Am 413, I said 14, I'm 13. Aspirational age yeah, I'm just beginning to become a teenager, but aside from that, I'm working on preserving the steam engine down town in the historical society area and Really looking to Keep it.
Speaker 3:Well, he came down to one of our meetings and he was very interested in, you know, maintaining the engine and so this, the summary has been painting it and kind of getting that part restored a little bit. And during, during Halloween last year, what'd you do I?
Speaker 4:I, what I call fired it up, which I essentially just put a fire in the firebox and made it look like it was actually running when it wasn't so. Therefore, I was tricking all the kids to making things. I'm making them think he was running.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that was and that was a popular attraction and you like to do that Occasionally, but you took on. You took it on, is wanting to preserve it, and I think that's a great idea. And what's the next piece that you're going to add to that?
Speaker 4:Well, we're think I'm thinking we're thinking about adding a whistle to the engine. So hopefully before this Halloween comes along there will be a whistle on and Probably do like some sort of Fundraiser donation. We give a dollar and you can blow the whistle on stat type of stuff and we might raise quite a lot.
Speaker 3:We're not currently currently, you are actually raising funds to buy the whistle An air compressor, since we're not going to be able to fire the steam boiler up yet, but someday, you hope to yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe have that boiler up and running. So, and I think for a 13 year old, that's pretty admirable that you want to get out there and preserve history like that. The board of directors at the heritage foundation pretty much gave you a green light to get that thing Up to snuff and, you know, try to preserve as much as possible. I think that's. That's pretty exciting, honestly.
Speaker 1:So William, why the interest in locomotives?
Speaker 4:Well, ever since I was young, my father was always interested in trains and there's always been a layout in the basement Then I always was interested in it. I don't know, for I don't know why, but I was always, and For some reason in particular I've had a interest in steam locomotives. I don't know why. It's just the. I think complexity or the, just the works of the engine is Interesting.
Speaker 5:I think steam engines were always interesting to you because you had always had a remarkable interest in like ships with the smoke stacks and the steam boilers, and then the engines with the train engines with the smoke stacks and Yep and all the smoke and, you know, polluting the air, etc.
Speaker 4:It's always been interesting, you know. So that's, that's really how it is.
Speaker 1:I think it's pretty neat. So, as you may know, superintendent Kruger and school board President Jake Burrows are often on this podcast and since neither of them could make it today, I'm gonna give you the opportunity. If there's one thing that you could change About your experience at school, hmm, what would it be? More break time, more break time. Oh yeah, how would that look?
Speaker 4:Oh no, you would have some maybe 15 minute breaks in between classes instead of Five minute breaks and larger lunchtime. You know we only get 25 minutes, let's go.
Speaker 1:That's good. Who has been your favorite teacher?
Speaker 4:Well, last year's great teacher, surprisingly my math teacher, mr Hart, and my science teacher, mr Gross, two of the best teachers I've had ever when made them stand out to you. There they're. Uh, I don't know they had good humor and I don't know they're good at teaching my Awesome, karen.
Speaker 1:Welcome back. How are you?
Speaker 5:Oh good, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1:It's a pleasure, as always, what's going on in your world.
Speaker 5:Oh, let's see. Well, currently I want to introduce some visitors that I brought with me. I have two out of state visitors. Actually they're two family members, very, very distinguished and you know love family members of mine that are here visiting me this week my uncle Ralph and my uncle Sal. So they come from Oceanside, california, and they are experiencing the Midwest usually one week a year when they come to stay with me. So, yeah, they definitely getting a different perspective in the Midwest. They grew up in the Midwest when they were really young, but when they were high school age they moved out to California. So now they're back and so they have sort of a dual perspective.
Speaker 1:Well, gentlemen, welcome to West Liberty and welcome to the Building Together podcast. Thank you very much. I am curious, as a visitor to town, what are your impressions of our community?
Speaker 9:That's a good question. We've been coming here for about 20 years. Well, you all have more structures coming in, more. It seems like you're heading in the right direction. It's just a little more assortment of family owned shops and visitors that can serve your community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Well. Thank you for that input. I think that's really helpful to hear from somebody who just visits the community, but also somebody who's been visiting over the course of 20 years. I think that's really valuable. What do you think are the biggest changes that you've noticed over that course of time?
Speaker 9:I think there's a little bit more a sense of community. That's just in my opinion. I mean, everybody knows each other. That's a good thing when you come into town. It makes other people that come into town more comfortable. Feel welcome yeah you're welcome when you come into. Sometimes you can go into another community and walk around and people will look at you and say, well, you're not from here, but here nobody questions, everybody says a lot. I think just the friendliness of the community is made better. Strides at big.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Speaker 9:More business.
Speaker 3:The first thing that I noticed when I see a toothpick Ralph come to town is he heads down to the bakery. That's the first place they hit in town is the bakery. He looks forward to that every year that he comes yeah.
Speaker 1:Acapulco Bakery does an amazing job.
Speaker 3:They do they absolutely do a major job. They generally like to go across the New York dollar, but in numerous restaurants we've eaten in just about every one here- in town.
Speaker 1:Well, have you tried their Trace Lay Jays cake?
Speaker 9:Not here but back home. Yes, but anything that they have there is really good Well.
Speaker 5:I think we were just talking the other day about the size of their conscious compared to what you get in California.
Speaker 9:They're huge Right. Everything is bigger here in Iowa than what we get in. California Right. Everything keeps shrinking.
Speaker 3:Except their taxes.
Speaker 1:Well, speaking of taxes, Kara, what's going on with City Council?
Speaker 5:Great segue, good segue. There is some property that west of town that actually wanted to be brought into the city, wanted to be into the fold, and then they wanted to also develop a neighboring property. So in order to do that, in order to feasibly do that, they did want to be brought in. So they're now currently annexed in and part of the fold. So who is this? I believe it's the Wheely Chevrolet. And then there's a adjacent property that they also wanted to develop At least I believe they're looking at developing that to some degree. So, yeah, that'll be nice. You know, west Liberty is really starting to really see that surge of growth and expansion. So, with housing developments starting this year and there's a new business housing development on the main drag on Columbus Street, I think we're moving in the right direction and hopefully we'll be able to spread out west and spread out north and maybe east, and, yeah, it'll be great.
Speaker 2:I've noticed that down the development, the meadows, that they've got three of the homes set.
Speaker 5:Yes, they have three now, although I think they're still finishing those before people move in, because as manufactured homes you do have some distinct choices on the fine details. So I think they're still working with homeowners on some of the details. But yeah, that's kind of nice that everybody can sort of plan their own design, their own facade, so that's really neat.
Speaker 1:Looks like things are coming along rather quickly at the what we had been calling the BICI subdivision.
Speaker 5:Absolutely the.
Speaker 1:Dumont, dutton subdivision out there.
Speaker 5:Yes, and it's coming along nicely from the road, from Rainbow Drive, and access to Dutton to there's going to be part of the trail on that area, so eventually we'll get it to connect with the Heritage Trail and we'll finally be able to like go around the city at some point here Could be next to a non rail yeah, that's way into the future. And then there'll be some new housing. There'll be single family and multifamily housing in that area, so that'll be awesome.
Speaker 1:It talks about the trail a little bit. Why are walking and biking trails so important to the community?
Speaker 5:Because that's a quality of life standard, because that is what people really want to see in their community. They want to be able to get out and they want to be able to have that freedom and that flexibility and that ease of getting around our community, which is so easily done on foot or on two wheels. It's just a matter of making sure it's done in a really safe way and a feasible way, and it's no better than a trail, you know, a nice highlighted route around town that people can go through and see different aspects of town and have sort of this route where they can take for, like, exercise, fitness training, whatever it is. So it'll be, it'll be great once we get it all in place.
Speaker 3:Correct me if I'm wrong, Ken and Charles. Since 2004 it was the number one cited thing amongst all of our community studies is quality of life in a trail around town. It has always been at the top of the things that we want.
Speaker 5:And I actually I think we had our comprehensive plan done in, like 2016, 2017 for the city, and that was one of the line items in the comp plan was yeah, as far as like quality of life issue. You know trails, dog park, you know recreational facilities. Yeah, absolutely. What if we took the trails?
Speaker 3:and made them the dog park. That would be a trail running, and how much fun would that be.
Speaker 5:I think you can already, provided your animal is leashed, of course, leashed and fully licensed strollers strollers as many as many young families as we have in the community.
Speaker 2:We have having having trails and updating the sidewalks and connecting things. So then you don't have to get the car out, you don't have to bother with it. You can toss the kids in the stroller or those collapsible wagons and go for a ride, and then you're not shaking the children so much that they're getting sick from all the problems.
Speaker 5:Well, we're in old town with what we used to have really old high curb and gutter, and so the before before ADA, before ADA was in place, a lot of our street to sidewalk border lines were pretty significant and it was really difficult to get a stroller over those because it was quite a drop into the roadway to cross. So I'm really glad that now things have changed to the point where it's got that receding. What do you call it? Zero entry sort of handicap access way and you can just go from one end of the street to the other and you don't have to worry about any safety issues.
Speaker 1:So there's a city planning concept called a 20 minute city, and this concept was originally designed for larger metropolitan areas, but it's something that I look at very closely here in West Liberty, and the way the 20 minute city works is that, as somebody that lives or works in our town, can they get everything that they need within 20 minutes of walking or biking somewhere.
Speaker 1:So, without public transportation and without a vehicle, can you get food, can you get clothes, can you get to work? Can you get all these things within 20 minutes, right, and so trails that are wide and that are paved especially for bikes, that can get you around busier streets, are very important, but it's easy to overlook the simple things like sidewalks that connect, and that's true. We talked about strollers, but wheelchairs we have several handicap residents here in West Liberty that rely on wheelchairs as their only mode of transportation, and how easy is it for them to get from their home to downtown, to the pharmacy, right? These are all things that we have to think about, and so what steps can we take as a community to make life better for them? But also, as we're growing right and we're adding businesses and we're adding homes, how can we keep that 20 minute city model in mind.
Speaker 3:And it's a and I studied that 20 minute thing. I think the concept is brilliant. A lot of bigger cities are really kind of grabbing hold of that. Well, chicago, for example, they all have their own little neighborhoods. That's the same concept there and I know there was a conspiracy theory thing out there about how this is all a big plot and it's kind of stupid when you think about it but how they come up with a reasoning it's, but the concept is solid because here in a small town you should be able to get to everything, obviously in a 20 minute concept. But it is nice to build a.
Speaker 3:Do that on passageways and walkways that aren't going to be impeding. You know I hate to have my, my son, riding his bike to school in the middle of, you know, highway 6. That's never, never a good thing. You never know. You say goodbye and you love you and I see you and hope to God. You know I get to school. Okay, if we had a trail, that would be a nice thing. I know it's going to be safe and it'll be taken care of. Again, nursing home we've got a lot of people come out and I walk around our trails around the nursing home, but you get too far away out of that and you run into the carbon gutter. Sometime we'll get one or two electric chairs. It'll get stuck between the carbon gutter. They're burning the tires up it's cloud of smoke. They're trying to get up over the curb. Then when they do, they're up in somebody's yard, you know in the middle of the yard by the time they get up there and we got to go over and lift them out.
Speaker 1:And that's all hand power. Those are manual wheelchairs.
Speaker 3:Well, you should see the electric ones, holy buckets.
Speaker 2:And the crash reports we have to do for those.
Speaker 3:I know, then you got to call our friends at dial and give them some time.
Speaker 1:But I'm very thankful that we have a city council that is very in tune with this, that we have a mayor that is very in tune with this. They're working really hard to get all these sidewalks in and we've got a specific project going on right now.
Speaker 5:Well, we're redoing the access way around for that roadway knotty circle drive and building brand new sidewalks in a neighborhood. Yeah, absolutely. New approaches, sidewalks, yep, working on the street absolutely. So we're doing this, for I think it was early on. It was identified through strategic plan to put in place and prioritize street works that really needed to be done and we did that. So this is one of those items in that listed priorities. The knotty circle, rainbow drive it was Elm and Elm's done, maxon, maxon's done. So, yeah, we're just moving down the line.
Speaker 2:The city's keeping that a priority because they're dividing up the city into quadrants and they're having the street superintendent identify which sidewalks need to be worked on. So it's a continuing project that we're making sure that we keep up.
Speaker 5:Not only for streets and roadways, but for sidewalks as well. Yeah, to maintain those.
Speaker 6:Charles, happy September. Happy September. How are you? I'm good, great, I'm good. I'm glad it's September, still thinking of July, but yeah, someday I will. No, we uh, the Chamber of Commerce had a good August. We had our 19th annual Chamber of Commerce golf tournament at the West Lombardy Country golf course. It was fun. There was kilts, there was space themes, there was food, we had extra food and there were a hundred degree temperatures.
Speaker 3:so space kilts with a hundred degree down space.
Speaker 6:Yes, but nobody passed out. We had really great attendance and we kept everybody hydrated.
Speaker 3:That was our goal.
Speaker 6:That was my goal, everyone else's goal I'm not sure what it was, but my goal was to make sure we just got through it.
Speaker 1:Hydration is so important.
Speaker 2:I brought a med kit with me, fully intending on only putting that day and driving the golf cart, and I was just astounded that nobody needed any medical attention. They did a good job keeping in the shade when they could drinking water. I had a. Literally I got a box of 25 ice packs. I was for sure I was gonna need them, not one use.
Speaker 6:But we ended with August. Myself I had a meeting with the Raghbri officials. They came back and visited and wanted to know my thoughts and opinions on how it went Pros, cons, negative, positive and it was a great 45 minute conversation. And the last question they asked me was would I ever host an overnight for Raghbri? I said we have the space to host. Their biggest thing is that their riders on their last day wanted a short, quick day. They don't want it 80 miles, they'd rather do 50 miles or less and party. And we are an ideal line of the state of Iowa to hit that. And I said I'd be in it. But I'd also need my partnerships behind me completely supporting me on that and ideally I would need Kelsey with the fairgrounds. I need the fairgrounds, that would. That would be it. But I said they ended with we'll be in contact in years back, so it's not gonna be like a next year or the year after it's. It's definitely a time where we can, you know, see a couple years.
Speaker 6:We've looked at the the years prior and we've been every four to five years West. Liberty's been a pass through town or meeting town.
Speaker 5:Yeah, maybe ten.
Speaker 3:Did they have any input for us? I mean, what was their thoughts on how we did as a town?
Speaker 6:They had great feedback from the riders. They actually gave me a beautiful picture of West Liberty. They had a photographer every day and they took photos for us and they they've always enjoyed putting West Liberty on the map and that's why they wanted it on the 50th route was. It's an ideal town. It's a town that's always, always shows up and I gave them. You know my pros and cons. You know the week of Rag Brie was a challenging week across the state. It's a. It's also family week in the school system. So you know band teachers and teachers and coaches can't do anything or connect with their students or their groups, organizations, and they they took notes on that and they're gonna go talk to their representatives and the government when they go back and start next year's route, which is already planned. They did not tell me.
Speaker 6:They said it's planned, but they didn't tell me. But I also gave them feedback on how some of our vendors local vendors did and gave them some quotes and I said we really showed up and a lot of our organizations did very well with what we had to work with.
Speaker 3:So I thought too. I was in the rotary booth and Karen so were you, and the comments we got from the writers coming through about how well organized the town was, how well everything, and they loved the porta-potties at the very beginning. You know when they come into town, turn the corner. They got all the vendors. It was easy through, they could see everything they needed. And you know, we're again on their way. They just loved it. They heard not a single negative, but now we're looking beyond rag-brite.
Speaker 6:We're looking through September and big events coming down the line, but our theoretically, September is a planning month for the holidays. I have enough to say it's still well, it was August and I've been talking about Christmas. So things like that are happening with the Chamber of Commerce and we're getting some things arranged for the holiday open house weekend, November. So I just placed an order for some things for some photo ops, but truly, yeah, we're looking towards the fall and winter.
Speaker 1:Thanks, charles Allie. How are you?
Speaker 7:Good, good Summer readings all wrapped up and the school year has obviously started again, so we're happy to see our school kids back at the library. Yeah, our hours have just changed as of today. So Friday's, moving forward, will be open from 10 am to 5 pm. That's so that we can sneak an earlier story time in there. It'd be open a little bit earlier during the week on just one day a week. We're usually pretty slow in the morning, but we have heard that there was need for 11 o'clock is just not a great time for our little kids. And story times, which I relate to, it's usually about gearing up for a nap time and lunch time, and sometimes it's hard to get the kids out of the library at an appropriate amount of time. So we're doing that. So our family story times are moving from Tuesdays to Fridays at 10 am.
Speaker 7:Fiber Arts Club starting on September 5th. That's going to start meeting the first Tuesday of each month at 5 pm. So bring whatever you're working on. Hopefully we'll start bringing in some people to teach some stuff from around the community so you can learn a new craft as well as work on what you're already working on in the company of friends.
Speaker 7:We launched the Rosetta Stone program at the beginning of August. So Rosetta Stone is a language learning software that I know frequently used to be sold online or it was like a sold-on-TV kind of thing, and then also Barnes and Noble used to stock it and things, and now it's all an online resource. We now have that through EBSCO host, which is a library database service, and it is again language learning, so we have access to anyone who has a library account. You do have to type in your account number or be in the library. We're connected to our Wi-Fi. So if you just want to hang out in the parking lot, that's okay To use Rosetta Stone. It does have Latin American, spanish, as well as Castilian, and then English as well, plus 27 other languages.
Speaker 1:Now, Alie, I understand you're working with some of our larger local businesses to walk them through that process so they can help connect their employees with that service.
Speaker 7:Yes, we're happy to do any sort of trainings to management groups or other employee groups within your organization to talk about how to use this and to get people signed up for library accounts. Yeah, we're happy to get this out to as many people as possible. I think communication is key to community growth and if it's hard, if people can't talk to each other.
Speaker 1:It's a really big deal.
Speaker 7:So we will be in October, launching some kind of self-guided space and technology to be walking through this program for learning English. Specifically, we're going to have some English speaking volunteers available to help anybody through anything that they don't quite understand how the system is asking you to answer the questions or things like that. Then we'll also be launching Spanish language learning as well, with an emphasis on Spanish literacy for Spanish speakers, so it'll be Spanish language learning entirely, but also to help people learn how to read Spanish. It's for those who don't go through the dual language program and things like that. Not everybody learns how to read Spanish, even though they speak Spanish, so making sure that we have people who can read all those lovely books we have on our shelves is a little self-serving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Allie, will you be bringing back celebrity story time?
Speaker 7:We are absolutely bringing back celebrity story time. Kelly, my children's librarian, is currently working with the first grade teachers to figure out what day and time is going to work best. We're hoping that it can be Friday mornings at 10 so we can have it at the same time as our regular story time schedule. But we're going to work with them and figure it out. With the ELC and kindergarten joining at the elementary school, lunches have been shifted so we're making sure that we're at the right time for when the first graders are available, but we're very excited to have them come back. I believe the first one, the first two, have been booked, so if they're able to come in September, it will be Kelly or myself doing the story time so we can orient all these kids to how the library works as an introduction. And then if anybody in the community is interested in reading for celebrity story time, let us know and we'll be happy to book you. Other than these two months we don't have anybody on the docket yet we are also launching our how to talk so kids will listen workshop this month, starting on September 19th.
Speaker 7:Tuesday, the 19th, will be the start of the Spanish language workshop and then Wednesday will be the English language workshop. I believe we're looking to have like eight families for each of these workshops. We will be providing childcare as well as a meal and trying to reduce barriers to access as much as we can, and we do have the books available in Spanish and English and we will have Spanish speakers assisting with the workshop in Spanish. The goal is, at some point, to create some sort of support group for parents in the community. Being a parent is hard and it's nice to have more people to bounce ideas off of and get input from and things like that, and so we're hoping that this could be a continuing program. In future. We'll probably run this for the community members as well, looking towards, you know, like coaches, mentors, people who do tutoring, anybody who interacts with kids on a regular basis, just to help with that communication portion. It's a really good workshop.
Speaker 1:Amazing so much going out of the library Always, stephanie. Happy September Happy.
Speaker 8:September.
Speaker 1:How are you?
Speaker 8:I'm doing great Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1:You have something really exciting coming up in About a week and a half, right I?
Speaker 8:have so many exciting things coming up, I'm starting to lose track of all the exciting things, but yes, september 16th is a Saturday.
Speaker 1:So that's not Saturday. Yeah, not day after tomorrow. Yes, yes, so not tomorrow.
Speaker 8:No, not tomorrow, but two weeks from that, on the 16th, because that is also Mexican Independence Day.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is, and.
Speaker 8:Children's Festival coordinates with few, so exactly.
Speaker 8:We're all gonna have a grand old time, the whole community together. And of course, while the big event is September 16th, the festivities are actually kicking off on Friday, the 15th. Right around the time that school gets out. The West Liberty Public Library is very graciously hosting our workshop when we are gonna have puppeteer Sandy Voight come and make with kids a paper horse puppet, which is related to the show that they're gonna be performing at the festival on Saturday, so everybody gets a little preview and a little souvenir of the show before it even happens. It's very exciting.
Speaker 8:After that we've also got another workshop, more for grown-ups Pam Corcoran, who is a puppeteer from Wisconsin and makes these really amazing needle-felted puppets. She's doing her needle felting workshop at the brick street gallery on Friday. I think that was scheduled for 430 or 550 double-check me. There is a fee for that one. I think it's $20. So call the puppet center if you're interested. There's a limited number of spaces available. The workshop at the library is free to any kid that wants to show up, or adult adults can come to and bring out your inner child. That's always fine with us. And then, of course, 730 on Friday night in rendezvous park is our puppet slam, and we've got some really wonderful MCs that are coming house. That slam for us. You may be familiar with Cliff McFerrin and Ken Brooks, maybe just a little familiar with that.
Speaker 3:Hi folks, how are you come on to the puppet slam? It's gonna be on Friday night, the 15th, at rendezvous park. It'll be outdoors. It'll be great Ken.
Speaker 8:We'll be at 730. We're really excited about it. We've got some of my wonderful acts happening. I'm gonna blow up the world, so that'll be a good time.
Speaker 3:It'll be a short show. It'll be over by.
Speaker 8:Of course, on Saturday we've got Millions of things happening and we're all losing our minds putting it together, but it's coming together really nicely. We've got five different papa shows taking place on the stage at rendezvous park. Monica and I are gonna bring the oil and spiegel puppets to start the day off and we're gonna perform Uncle Rabbit's adventures, or las aventuras de Tio Conejo, at 10 o'clock, and that is our bilingual show, which hasn't been seen in West Liberty in a little while.
Speaker 8:So we're happy to bring that back and after that, of course, chuck and Sandy are gonna perform they're a little horse show that I can't remember the name of and who else let's see. Pam Corcoran is gonna perform her Billy Goats gruff with her lovely needle-felted puppets, and then, beyond that, we've got two acts that have never been on that stage before that we're very excited about. Dan Romano, also known as digger of blackberry puppets, is gonna be performing, and he's been in town a lot just helping us out with Things, but for various reasons We've never been able to get him on our stage. So this year we finally have him. We're very excited to see that show.
Speaker 8:And we have another new puppeteer as well who hasn't performed here before Matthew Owens. He is a puppeteer from Chicago who gained some fame During the lockdown in 2020, when nobody could go anywhere or do anything fun, and he had in Chicago a second-story apartment with a balcony and he started doing this puppet circus right off of his balcony and people would gather below with their masks and their little family pods, all socially distanced and, you know, finally got to see some live theater.
Speaker 8:I can tell you from experience, people were really hungry for some theater around that time, so he provided a very valuable service and I'm really excited to see how that show has evolved, now that it's come out of the balcony and onto the stage. And, of course, after that at three o'clock we reopen Calhoun Street and Fiesta Latina takes over with their music and their food, and it's just gonna be a grand old time for everybody such an amazing day every year. We like it. Such an amazing day it's plenty of work, but it's totally worth it.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for all of your hard work.
Speaker 3:Again, what do you got going on it? We lead the exciting things.
Speaker 1:So at the West Liberty Business Association meeting that we had a couple weeks ago, we did a little bit of visioning. We broke off into into groups and we talked about Not just this year and next year, but five years and ten years from now. What, what do we think that our community is going to look like? And that's a really important conversation to have, because the projects that we're planning for right now are going to be affecting us five years, ten years, twenty years down the line, and so those conversations really just were meant to Spark the imagination, to get people thinking about that. But it came at the perfect time, because West Liberty is one of the communities across Muscatine County that is participating in a larger housing study, and this was something that we talked a little bit about the other day. But this housing study is going to help Show us exactly what type of homes and where we should be building them, but the data that they're collecting goes above and beyond homes.
Speaker 1:So the last time West Liberty had a housing study was 2012. I think it came out in 2013 and we were talking about trails earlier. That was one of the studies that clearly demonstrated that a an increase in walking and biking trails in West Liberty. I was one of the number one amenities that people are looking for, correct? And I think we had some subsequent studies to that that. They told us the same thing, but it's not just housing. They're wanting to know what do we have going on in our community that makes us want to stay here in our community and what should we be adding to the community To make us stay in the community and to attract other people to the community?
Speaker 1:So there's an outside firm that's been contracted to conduct this study. It's a scientific study. So if you get anything in the mail, if you get a phone call, please return the questionnaire, pick up the phone, talk to the folks that are asking the questions and be sincere about it. Give them some thoughtful answers here.
Speaker 1:Coming up in just a couple weeks, at noon on Thursday, the 14th of September, here at the Weleave building, we're gonna kind of have an Introductory session by the folks that are conducting that survey. So we're gonna be hosting that here. We're gonna have something to eat. We invite everybody to come out and learn more about that process and then it will be a good opportunity for you to ask some questions of the folks that are conducting this research. I Think this is gonna be a really good opportunity for us to come together and have some real conversations about the direction which we're headed, so I'm excited for that. We will be providing Spanish interpretation for that, so Everybody in the community is encouraged to come out and participate again. That's noon on Thursday, the 14th of September, here at Weleave in downtown West Liberty.
Speaker 3:It's exciting. I think that'll be a that'll be a fun event.
Speaker 1:You got a lot of other stuff coming down the pipeline, but this has been a podcast and a half, so we'll see that for next time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we can edit this down a little bit.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you everybody for listening to this month's podcast and thank you to our panelists, who despise me very much.
Speaker 3:Well, I think we can honestly say, ken, with all sincerity, the podcast that you put together is a is a very good, solid thing for the city. We kid a lot, we kid each other, we have a good time, but the information that you get if you can mine out all of the all of the great matter Is very good. It's very good for the city and your intentions are very good. We try to ruin it for you as much as we can, but you do a nice job editing, so we appreciate your efforts.
Speaker 1:Well, stay tuned for our October live-streamed edition of building together. The building together podcast is a service of Welead, the West Liberty Economic Area Development Corporation, and is brought to you by West Liberty Auto Parts and the Goodfellas Club and from generous support from listeners like you. Thanks for spending time with us. We'll see you next month. Building together dream it planet, build it, you, you.
Speaker 3:You.
Speaker 5:Been a christmas. Nothing says love more than a spitty llama. I think so.
Speaker 4:Look at the llama At a point had a great August.
Speaker 6:Were you going to give me a note? You flashed it. I wasn't sure. Oh, do you want me to do it?
Speaker 1:You turned your phone on and I was like what so Carol is running a podcast.
Speaker 4:I have a Facebook radio. Is that too small?
Speaker 5:My cookie fall apart. You'll have to edit that out.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 5:What do we have next?
Speaker 1:I was going to just give that a pause there, an easier reference point when I cut this.
Speaker 9:I had nothing, mark, when that started.
Speaker 7:I had nothing I had nothing. I had nothing. I had nothing, I had nothing.
Speaker 3:I had nothing.
Speaker 1:I had nothing.
Speaker 3:You still got nothing. Maybe you'd end this thing.
Speaker 5:Put a spear at it.
Speaker 1:Are we going again? No, he's playing us off the stage, playing us off. Playing us off Jack.
Speaker 9:Hello, I am Jack Kraus. Jack, what do?
Speaker 3:you do? What are you interested in, Jack?
Speaker 4:Well, I interest myself into in working with people traveling here.
