March 28, 2024

City looking to foster a high-quality of life for citizens

Fostering a high-quality of life is an important purpose in the city’s plan to move Newton into the future in a positive way.

Through neighborhood improvement to growing the parks system and encouraging a sense of community, the city has identified several areas to develop goals, objectives and strategies in the 2017-2019 Action Plan to move forward in this purpose.

Foster a high quality of life

“The city’s purpose is to continue to build upon the high-quality of life in Newton by focusing on growing community livability, cultural and historical resources, recreational amenities and community aesthetics in order to benefit existing households and draw young families to choose Newton as their home,” city senior analyst Natalie Umsted said.

Six goals were established in the action plan including improving neighborhood quality and curb appeal, provide access to information and community education, maintain and develop a versatile parks system, encourage a vibrant sense of community, improve Newton’s transportation network and support environmental sustainability to help move progress in the city forward.

To improve neighborhoods, the city plans to address residential areas through improvements using state and federal grant funds along with city commitments. An area the city has narrowed in on is the completion of the First Avenue Neighborhood Improvement project.

The city also plans to continue the dangerous and dilapidated program to abate and demolish low-conditioned buildings throughout the community.

The Newton Public Library is also getting involved in the plan through the goal of providing access to information and community education. During the next two years, the library will work to offer free technology classes and coordinate and partner with the Newton High School to offer “Tech Times with Teens” on a monthly basis to help users. It will also begin the process of offering 30 technology classes that focus on new and upcoming technology trends and devices.

Additional areas the library will focus on include providing education on the new library catalog, offering programming to help parents understand the importance of reading to their children, increase the enrollment of adults in the summer reading program and begin work with the parks department to offer library events around the city.

The parks department has two main areas of focus designated in the action plan. First, is to make improvements to the skate park at Aurora Park. The Newton Parks Board has been working on a plan to construct a new skate park with design plans currently underway.

The second objective of the parks department is to construct a new clubhouse/community center at Westwood Golf Course. Initial designs have been presented for the building with further work, including a funding source, needed for the project to move forward.

To encourage a vibrant sense of community, the city plans to create an annual cohesive summer calendar of events featuring parks, the library and other city events and collaborate with a minimum of 10 existing or emerging community events that align with the city’s vision statement to expand the event’s marketing efforts locally and in the region.

Another way the city will promote positive information is to engage residents through quarterly magazines, local marketing and social media. It plans to publish eight quarterly magazines and a minimum of 20 social media posts per month.

A high priority for Newton is improving accessibility by focusing on sidewalks. In the next two years, the city will continue work on the “Sidewalk Inventory of High Priority Areas” map to bridge areas with no or segmented sidewalks and improve sidewalks in highly traveled parts of town.

Along with foot traffic, bike and vehicle traffic will be addressed through the future route of the Hike and Bike Trail and continuing to implement the 5-Year Street Maintenance Program. The city will work to develop a plan to connect Newton to one of the regional trail systems and determine the appropriate route to complete the city’s hike and bike trail loop.

Streets including West 10th Street North, East Seventh Street North, East Third Street South, East 10th Street South, North Fifth Avenue West, North Sixth Avenue East, South Fifth Avenue West and South Fifth Avenue East will be a part of a future mill and asphalt overlay project to be completed by public works.

The last goal to foster a high-quality of life is to support environmental sustainability. To do so, the city will work to implement energy efficiency improvements at city facilities including lighting projects at the landfill, city hall, public work and the pool pavilion.

The city also will work to increase recycling through the community by visit all multi-family residential owners to promote recycling, along with gaining compliance with 80 percent of multi-family complexes. To educate the community at least eight varied classes on sustainability will be provided at the library.

The library will also be included in a project to promote monarch butterflies and other pollinator habitat development. In the coming years, the city will work to crease a new landscape at the library to include an Iowa native, natural aesthetic that increases pollination.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com