Many Iolans braved the chilly weather Friday morning to attend the December meeting of See, Hear Iola. David Toland, executive director of Thrive Allen County, informed the crowd of the organization’s goals for the upcoming year. THE COMMERCIAL speaker for the event was Major Justin Nusz. Nusz works at the Kansas National Guard full-time.
Thrive has three main focuses, Toland said: healthy lifestyles, health care and economic development.
The trails in Allen County have helped the community become active. The installation of wayfinding singage and the dedication of the new Iola arch on the trail are some up and coming projects.
“We are doing a feasibility study of a trail around the dike at Riverside Park,” Toland said. “We’re also working on a potential trail connector to the Elm Creek fishing area from the Southwind Rail Trail.”
Iola will have bike sharrows on key city streets and will hopefully have installation of bike racks around the town. Thrive is also doing a study for potentially opening a bike shop near the trail for bicycles.
Other healthy lifestyle projects include “The MoveMent” which gets people active. The Farmers Market encourages health eating habits.
“We don’t like to run things at Thrive,” Toland said. “We like to start things and let others continue them.”
Thrive would like to bring more physicians to the Allen County area, he said. The county is medically underserved according to national statistics.
“We also need to get a medical office building built near the new hospital and garner support for the expansion of the Community Health Center,” he said.
Many citizens have voiced concern about local businesses closing. Toland said for the last two years the city has had 100 percent occupancy in the downtown area.
“Soon some business owners will begin retiring,” he said. “Let’s look ahead and make sure there are buyers.”
Toland also said not having a location for industrial businesses in the area is quite a concern.
“I get emails from the state asking for locations for industries,” Toland said. “We can’t reply to those businesses because we need locations for them.”
Bringing native Iolans back to the city is also a goal.
The Home Again Campaign is a way to attract people this way.
“Small communities have a better chance of retaining new residents who either came from that town to begin with or are from other small towns,” he said.
“We’re on call to support citizens of Kansas,” he said.
He has been on two tours to Iraq and has helped build fuel pipelines and roads. He was able to train in places like Germany and Armenia.
“The guard has a support agreement to help Colorado and Utah with disasters,” he said.
Carl Slaugh, city administrator, showed a video during his city update portion of the event. The video included John Masterson, Allen Community College president. Masterson talked about his time spent in the Navy during Vietnam and what it was like to spend two Christmases away from home.
“They weren’t very Christmasy but the time spent in the Navy is a part of who I am,” Masterson said.
Lofty goals for 2014
