Flood Measures

All the rain that central Iowa has had recently has given the City an excellent opportunity to test its Emergency Flood Plan. Adherence and execution of the plan by our Public Works department behind the scenes to implement all necessary precautions has been terrific.

Most of the worry is behind us: Walnut Creek crested during the evening of April 25th and is quickly receding. Additional impacts from Walnut Creek are not anticipated at this time. The Raccoon River is projected to crest sometime April 27th and hold steady through the weekend. With no forecast rain for the next several days, chance of the Raccoon River impacting any property will be limited to properties not protected by the levee system. Walnut Woods Drive is the only road closed due to flooding and will remain closed through the weekend.

Public Works staff monitored the situation all last night, keeping a close watch to determine whether or not flood gates would be necessary. Thankfully, they were not and it appears that we are headed for dryer days. It is good to know, however, that our emergency plan is ready for any close call.

Welcome Mayor Gaer

Last week, our residents elected a new mayor via special election. Mr. Steve Gaer is Executive Vice President and General Counsel with R&R Realty Group, and now he is also Mayor of West Des Moines! From 1996-2003 Mayor Gaer served eight years as a West Des Moines City Councilmember. He has also served our City in other capacities throughout the years, including membership on the WDM Capital Improvement Program Committee, the West Des Moines Community Schools Foundation for Educational Excellence, and the West Des Moines Development Corporation.

Mr. Gaer earned his B.A. from the University of Kentucky in 1983 and JD from Drake University Law School in 1986. Married to Sally, he has two children. He has lived in West Des Moines for 44 years.

We will have a reception for former Mayor Gene Meyer before tonight's City Council meeting for anyone interested in attending. At the next meeting we will honor outgoing interim Mayor Messerschmidt and new Mayor Gaer.

This information and more can be found on our website.

Budget Commendation

If you attended the council meeting during which the Council passed the FY 07/08 budget, you heard Ted Lodden of the Polk/Des Moines Taxpayers Association compliment our work on the budget this year. The Association supported our efforts to implement a wellness program, our high level of intergovernmental cooperation, and our Citizen Survey results from 2006. Their final statement on the West Des Moines budget includes the following statement:

On Friday, February 9th, the Association met with City staff and the Mayor to learn about the Revenues and Expenditures in the proposed budget for FY2007/2008 and to question the staff on why certain decisions and recommendations were made to the council. As a result of the budget review session, the Taxpayers Association voted to SUPPORT the proposed FY2007/08 for the City of West Des Moines.

To read the entire statement and their review of our work, go to the Featured Items section on the front page of our website.

WDM Crime in 2005 vs 2006

Now that we are well into 2007, many City departments have had a chance to finish collecting and analyzing data from 2006 regarding their operations. Here are some items I found interesting from the Police Department Part I Offenses Report from 2006. The entire report can be found on the Police Department section of our website under News items.


For 2005, West Des Moines reported a total of 1969 Part I offenses. Part I offenses, established as such by the FBI, include willful homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny/theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. By convention, the total number of these eight offenses serves as the basis for calculating a city’s overall crime rate. In 2006, this number increased by 31 (2%) to 2000 offenses.

West Des Moines had 70 violent crimes reported in all of 2005, and this number increased by just 3 reports (4%) to 73 for 2006. Nationwide for the first 6 months of 2006, FBI statistics showed an increase in violent crimes of 3.7%.

There were 1927 crimes against property in 2006 compared to 1899 in 2005, an increase of 28 (1%). Larceny represents the majority of crimes against property in 2006, with 1606 reports. Included in this report is a breakout of these larcenies by type. Nationwide, FBI statistics showed a decrease in crimes against property during the first six months of 2006 of 2.6%. The chart below demonstrates the two year comparison by category.




The overall crime rate in West Des Moines for the entire year of 2006 for Part I offenses was approximately 38.65 offenses occurring for every 1000 residents. The violent crime rate for 2006 was 1.41 per 1000, while the property crime rate was 37.24 per 1000. The national crime rate for Part I offenses per 1000 for 2005 was approximately 35.17, with the national violent crime rate at 4.69. The 2005 crime rate for the state of Iowa was 2.91 per 1000 for violent crime, and 28.34 per 1000 for property crime.

Here are a few interesting statistics from the report:

• There were 71 reports of motor vehicle thefts reported, two more (3%) than reported in 2005. Recovery of the vehicle was made 72% of the reports. Several vehicles were located in other Iowa locations and one vehicle was located in Kentucky.


• Nationally the Honda Accord, Civic and Toyota Camry are the most frequently stolen vehicles. In Iowa, the vehicles most likely to be stolen are full size Ford and Chevrolet pickups.


• During 2005, the Midwest clearance rate for motor vehicle thefts was only 13.0%. West Des Moines experienced a clearance rate of 59% for stolen motor vehicle reports in 2005.


• Burglaries of commercial/office buildings, apartment garage buildings, residential locations and schools decreased from 2005, while burglaries of construction sites increased.

Spring Cleanup Review

There was a comment on my entry about the Teen Center regarding Spring Clean Up I'd like to try and respond to. In the past couple years we have received some complaints that the May dates for spring cleanup conflicted with graduations and Memorial Day weekend. Many residents have people coming to their homes around that time or were going out of town for Memorial Day weekend and could not get their debris to the curb. With the cooperation of Artistic Waste, we decided to make the change in collection dates to April.

We used to conduct spring clean during the first week or two of April when collection was conducted by our own Public Works Department. In that case, we tried to get it completed as early in the year as possible so it would have a minimal impact on our normal operations. Now that we have Artistic Waste to perform the service, there is a new reason for earlier dates--accommodation of a busy time for our residents. The best way to know for sure is to check your media outlets around this time of year--we publish this information in the paper four weeks prior to cleanup, as well as on the websites for both the City and Artistic Waste. Notifications were also sent in to residents in water bills.

Hopefully that provides some insight into why we made the most recent date change. Driving around the City, it was clear many residents took advantage of the Spring cleanup operations. I hope the process went as smoothly in your neighborhood as it did in mine!