City TALK 2/1/2011

hello I'm a million Juarez chief

communications officer for the City of

Des Moines welcome to City talk the

blank Park Zoo has gone high-tech will

tell you how they're using some of the

latest technologies to keep you informed

and entertained and the winds of change

are blowing across a des moines

Botanical Center Alvin McDonald the

director of friends at the Botanical

Center will be here to tell us about

their plans for redevelopment and some

exciting upcoming events we have some

real news you can use so stay tuned city

talk we'll be right back after these

messages

DM TV is on the move Mediacom is

upgrading their cable system to digital

technology and as part of that

transition DM TV will be moving to

channel 86 and 97.1 depending on your

TV's technology follow us on April 27 to

our new home on channel 86 and 97.1 or

watch us live online at WWDC the sound

the skates

the great

the spills

the thrills

the families

renton skating Plaza fun on the ice

magic in the air

my first guess is elvin McDonald the

director of friends of the des moines

Botanical Center and he's here to talk

to us about their plans for

redevelopment and some upcoming events

Alvin welcome to city tom thank you

let's begin by telling our viewers about

the organization what is it and what's

their mission well the friends raise

money to support the botanical center

and along the way we have a lot of fun

we produce special events we help direct

the content and provide some of the

content for it and i would say remember

our board is crazy about public gardens

and what they mean to the community well

we're fortunate in Des Moines we have

some very beautiful public gardens you

have a formal action plan or a plan for

your redevelopment I'm interest to know

what do you got to do hey well we

celebrated 30 years last year and by the

time you're 30 years old if you're a

building you need some rehabilitation

and we've always been bisected by Robert

B ray drive which kind of kept us from

embracing the river it's a fabulous site

very few cities have 14 acres downtown

to devote to such a thing so in this

long-range plan we close ray to the

north and we have a new ally of trees

which is very inviting I provides new

public spaces for gathering and 20 new

distinct Gardens like a children's

garden which I see is having some

musical components there are outdoors

isla phones there are kind of

tic-tac-toe things that you jump on aim

it you know I'm sure love it and so it's

like a facelift but in a way a

completion of what was begun when it

when that dome was built in nineteen

seventy-nine it was the hippest thing

going there was one in Montreal one in

Vancouver three in Milwaukee one in st.

Louis of course the Des Moines parents

wanted one but it tended to make us

focus on dome and people began to say

well I've been there I've done that so a

couple of three years ago we open the

show house with ever-changing displays

that the Polk County Master Gardeners

take care

and that added to that and now we've

added pictures and paintings in the

north wing gallery that changed every

two months another reason to visit more

so actually the more you use it the more

it becomes feasible to keep doing it so

now if you're going to close Robert

dhire because I see I can visualize it

because it does kind of cut you off if

you wanted to go down and then there's

the Asian garden yes right there so what

year are we talking about that this

might occur right now we're in

feasibility study stage and at the

community leaders say yes we can raise

10 million dollars and we move to that

which would be this year next year and

hoping for completion and 13 okay all

right well tell us we know that there's

been a lot of changes who owns the des

moines Botanical Center well the city

owns the property and they were having

difficulty making it work and in 0 for

the des moines water works stepped up

and said we'd like to manage it so they

are engaged to do that at least through

12 and how does that impact Des Moines

taxpayers well it was very good because

the waterworks is taking on that

responsibility and of course that my

organization the friends are the

waterworks has a mission statement which

the friends holy support likely raising

the money to make it possible now other

friends managing the day-to-day the

friends do not the management is under

the governance of the waterworks and on

goodrich a longtime employee is our

facility manager okay all right I know

that your hours have changed so why

don't you share with us what are the new

hours for visitors to determine we are

open every day from nine to five except

major holidays we found that even if we

stayed open certain days the staff was

left doing nothing so that's an i get we

took away some of those and we added an

hour every day which is a net gain of

many days okay uh what can visitors see

and do when they come to the botanic

the center well when it's a cold outside

it's one step to the tropics and that's

probably draws us most in the winter but

we have all these interior displays

right now its color we have blue suede

shoes in the center of the dome right

now and it's really amusing and fun and

of course if you come Sundays for one

two three we have botanical blues it

draws several hundred people of some

beverages and snack foods are available

our Riverwalk cafe is open every day

except Sunday from 11 to two and it's

best kept secret and deploy well I had

lunch there a number of times and it's a

wonderful getaway to just kind of

decompress over the lunch hour I mean

the greenery and the food it's a very

nice environment I know for the month of

februari that you have several events at

the Botanical Center so let's kind of go

down the list of what's happening there

you have botanical blues as you were

telling us about and that's on sundays

from one to three sunday is a free event

no that's admission or members are free

of course always okay um you have

something called learn on Saturday and

that's every Saturday morning I've

talked at ten another at eleven and that

cost is 54 members and 10 for

non-members okay we can accommodate only

60 people and we've been just about

needing that every Saturday it's a great

series we have lovely time excellent I

call it church for gardeners that's a

good way to put it uh it's februari and

you have a Valentine's Day dinner we on

the 13th and the 14th and those are my

reservation and you can choose to dine

in the dome in tropical splendor or in

the show house in a more intimate

setting it's really wonderful and that

information is also available as you can

see on the screen so those are the

events that are scheduled for the month

of februari are you planning events

every month well all through March we

have learned on Saturdays every Saturday

and by the end of March everybody's

dying to get in their own Gardens so we

close that off let's talk a little bit

more about the restaurant what is the

name of the restaurant is called the

riverwalk cafe and it's operated by gray

midwestern catering and they do all the

catering at the botanical center as you

know we have a lot of meeting rooms we

have lots of weddings and all kinds of

events in these rooms well I know that

those spaces are also available for

rental so what type of rental facilities

are available there and and is it just

for weddings or is it for meetings what

can we rent the space for we have major

business meetings there like workforce

has meetings there politicians have

meetings there it all kind and we have a

walsh meeting room as the smallest but

in open willow we can accommodate 250

people so and we have audio visual

equipment and the waterworks has

rehabilitated those rooms I've added new

carpeting new draperies it's a wonder

and then I put this art and well I don't

supervise all these artists and

photographers every two months because

when I first had an office back there I

saw people like us coming out of serious

PowerPoint meetings sort of blind at

break time and I thought we have to get

rid of the motel aren't we get around

and put real art fresh art by mostly by

local artists but well let's talk a

little bit about the gardens and what

you have plan under your redevelopment

plan tell us first of all what's there

now and and how that's going to change

what is there now is gotten much better

in the recent years partly because of

the waterworks gardeners they're all

graduate horticulturists there five of

them they are wonderful they got the

spirit and then we have a very vigorous

volunteer team that helps them we have

the largest collection of buck roses

anywhere and those were created at I

Shuba duck Griffith buck and he's gone

but the roses live on in there a hearty

did or any special care we have the

largest collection of coleus on display

in any public argument and we have

really lots of roses and we the Iowa

regional luli society has filled a whole

bed with new lilies and day lilies and

iris and we have a great community

involvement there and much more goes on

in the outdoor Gardens than people

sometimes think because it is by

sectored by the road yeah you have like

you said some of the most unusual and

beautiful plants do you still have the

plant sale where we could take advantage

of that yes the plant sale i think it's

the first weekend in May and that's done

by the volunteers and the master

gardeners and it's a great place to pick

up flowers vegetables herb plants is if

you're a novice is there is there any

component at the Botanical Center such

as I am I love gardens but I I really

have don't have a green thumb programs

that I might be able to take advantage

of to learn more well the learn on

Saturdays programs are directly aimed at

that but we have very friendly gardeners

you we welcome questions and no matter

how dumb they are we will act like

you've never heard before and so I won't

feel bad that I don't know this simple

answer to question so when you expand

across the road what what's going to

change what would be different well it

would be first place you have this grand

la that people can walk down and there

will be a tremendous fountain at the end

of it will just draw you there so you

know I want to go in oh I don't know

what about to be here we begun and it'll

be Chuck it will be gone and the bike

trail will still continue right along

the river and in the event of flooding

we are prepared to open so that they

will go down this la but I gotta go hey

everybody's prepared for that so so

there'll be a fountain and it just been

many more places to be right now the the

curving quality of the dome it you never

have a sense of arrival you're just

confused it's endlessly confusing to

some people but you add this rectilinear

element and it sort of makes it all very

appealing and you have boat you could go

sit on a bench and contemplate the river

or a sculpture or you can watch your

children play kids absolutely love

botanical center oh I'm sure they do now

is this an image of what the play

em will look like it yes that is the

long-range plan yes okay and and so that

sort of shows you what is what's that's

the dome uh-huh okay well it looks

beautiful and of course eventually on

the other side of 235 this the city has

plans for that like I'm talking to

graduate students and architecture for

my shoes tomorrow afternoon with Erin

Oleson number Douglas yeah about what

the city sees on the other side of Ray

here sort of between intimacy suites up

to 35 you know all of this along the

riverwalk is making the Des Moines River

Walk just a must-see destination when

you come to the city and it's beautiful

well in the centre street bridge coming

year and the Asian garden and the Brent

and skating rink and the Botanical

Center it's all this is a platform I

want to stretching and limbering station

I know where I want it so that runners

can come and do crunches and sit-ups and

I I ran in a park in Houston for time

and had it stretch it now I always

wanted one year stuff well it sounds

fantastic all of the plans I can't wait

to see them I know it's going to be just

beautiful just lastly tell us where our

viewers can get more information about

the programs and services at the

Botanical Center well the telephone

number is 5 15 3236 to 90 or you go to

the website world-wide-web got botanical

center com we are the only botanical

center listed that way so if you just

Google botanical center you'll get us

every time okay elvin thank you very

much i really appreciate you coming to

visit us up next city update with

information from city government

operations here's your kind of young Des

Moines had a great 2010 and we're off to

a running start in 2011 in 2010 the city

received its fifth all-america City

award and was listed in the top ten for

best cities of 2010

des moines was also voted best place to

raise a family by forbes magazine in

2010 alone des moines received 24 awards

and recognitions this year des moines

has a number of construction and

economic development project scheduled

for completion with these improvements

and local government leadership the

morning sure to bring in more award keep

up the good work des moines des moines

Parks and Recreation likes to keep

residents active during the winter

months with activities in the community

centers indoor recreational sports and

more there's outdoor fun too at the

brinton skating plaza and the sledding

hills the Parks Department strongly

recommends that residents only use

approved Park locations for public

skating ponds there's a flag system in

place to indicate the availability of

public skating only the approved

facilities Greenwood McRae Whitmer parks

and grandview golf course will have

flags displayed a red flag indicates

that conditions are not suitable for

public skating while a green flag

indicates that is depth and conditions

are suitable if there's no flag

displayed the public should assume

conditions are not safe the City of Des

Moines park and recreation as that the

public keep off the ice and water where

there is no flag displayed or if the

flag is red

residents should have already received

their City source newsletter in the mail

we take pride in offering you the direct

link to information and activities of

the city government because the City of

Des Moines is continuously looking for

ways to reduce operating costs readers

will soon see sponsorship placement in

the newsletter every effort will be made

to maintain the present quality and

integrity of the city source newsletter

over time our goal is to reduce the

costs while continuing to keep you

informed as the chill continues to roll

through the air we'd like to remind you

of the snow and sidewalk ordinances the

city's snow ordinance comes into effect

when snow begins to fall when the

ordinance is in effect residents are

responsible to move vehicles off snow

routes failure to do so can result in

ticketing and or towing the city

sidewalk ordinance states that you must

clear your sidewalk of snow within 48

hours of the last snowfall residents

violating this ordinance run the risk of

being ticketed

the City of Des Moines has a new free

email subscription service subscribe

today and receive messages of your

choice including but not limited to snow

ordinance information road closures

construction projects meeting agendas

recreational sports and more just go to

WWD MGO Vorg and sign up to receive the

notifications februari is black history

month a time set aside to recognize the

numerous contributions to this nation

made by african-americans the City of

Des Moines has several local reminders

from the George Washington Carver bridge

to the Fort Des Moines Museum and Martin

Luther King jr. Parkway black history is

a live in Des Moines find local

celebrations to attend this month near

you don't forget there are a couple ways

to see your local government at work

feel free to was in any of the council

or board and a commission meetings or

watch them live at the designated times

on DM TV mediacom cable channel 86 and

97 dash one vm TV can also be seen live

on the city's website just click on the

watch live link on the public

information page this month the

following meetings will be held at City

Hall 400 Robert dear a drive on the

second floor in the council chambers

City Council will meet Monday februari

14 in February 28 at four-thirty p.m.

City Council workshop will be held

februari 14th in February 28 at 730am

Planning and Zoning Thursday februari

17th at 6pm the Zoning Board of

Adjustment meeting will be held

wednesday februari 23rd at 1pm and the

park board meeting will be held tuesday

februari 22nd at 5pm I'm shekinah young

and that's your city update

my next guest is Ryan Biffle marketing

director for the blank Park Zoo welcome

to city top all right thanks for having

us well I'm always excited when you come

because you bring little critters yeah

but there's so many exciting things

going on at the zoo with technology and

a few other things but first let's talk

about the zoo mobile what is that well

the zoo mobile is a bright green Toyota

Highlander and we got to thanks to the

folks at Toyota for helping us out with

the Highlander and like it goes out to

all the schools library senior homes so

you might see it around town and you can

just still wave and honk at it and enjoy

the new zoo mobile as so where is it

going is this is this what you use for

your educational program yeah it's

educational programs and we go all over

the state of Iowa and we educate you

know hundred thousand people outside the

zoo every year with all these different

programs when we take animals outside

the zoo so a lot of people can't go to

the zoo so we come to them all right

behind the scenes tours what is that

behind the scenes stirs well you heard

about this baby giraffe we had last oh I

did and unfortunately draft can't come

outside with all the snow and ice on the

ground so it's a way that people can go

see the draft and it helps raise money

for a non-profit zoo so for a hundred

dollars you can go you take a draft or

you and take a tiger tour you can take a

sea lion tour but right now i recommend

the draft or because you can see the

baby and you go behind the scenes in the

bar and see what they do in the

wintertime and also feed a giraffe so

it's a lot of fun how the baby out I

can't remember when the baby was born

but how big is it well it it grows

quickly it's it started out about six

feet 150 pounds okay it was born and it

was six feet yeah yeah and within a

month it had already gained 100 pounds

so it's growing feet something like that

hey and and of course its mother's milk

so six feet tall at birth yep now that's

a delivery for you okay um there is also

webcams now and I know there's some

other things going on on your on your

website lots of exciting thing

yeah we have two webcams and my favorite

is the monkey cam the snow monkey cam

especially right now with snow on the

ground because you can dial in it's a

great time to waste time at work if you

don't feel like working jump on the

computer and we don't do yeah yeah

you're not supposed to do that but you

jump on the computer go to our website

and you can just watch the snow monkeys

play around also this is real time it's

real time it's live it's it's on every

day from about 10 30 to 4 30 well the

website is blank Park Zoo com monkey

camp you don't want to miss it in terms

of Technology I know you have your

website you have online and you're using

social media so tell us how you using

social media well social media is just

an easy way for us to you know

late-breaking news about the zoo and so

you can go to our facebook page and

become a fan of our facebook page we

have 7,500 fans right now and so it's a

great way to communicate real fast we

also do contests and promotions you can

find out things that we don't tell

anybody else anywhere else on our

facebook site so that's facebook.com

slash blank Park Zoo and you can come a

fan and like us there well I know there

are lots of things that go on at the zoo

be on visiting the animals because you

have the discovery center and some other

facilities at the zoo tell us about that

well you know the zoo's open all winter

and one of the great facilities that

opened up in 2001 is the Mayan and

jackie blank Discovery Center and you

can go in there and you can see you know

there's like 20 different breeds of

birds we have the very rare pink pigeon

that that just had a baby chick so we

had now have three pink pigeons flying

around and there's only 250 of those

birds in the entire world so we have

three of them at the blank Park Zoo pink

pigeons yes is that from Mauritius an

island off the coast of Africa yeah okay

uh well I know you have some animals

that you've brought along yeah and so

I'd like to bring on he always brings

something that won't frighten me our

first animal this is Hercules the

European ferret

and we call him Hercules cuz he's like

twice as big as our other ferrets he's

not he's not he's not huge huge but he's

pretty big hey he's a mouse good yeah

and he just loves to play you know if I

let him go he'd probably find a hole and

curl up and you know what they can do

their very flexible so they love they

love d prairie dogs and so they need to

pray yeah yeah they like to eat prairie

dogs so what that what they do is they

go down on the Prairie call and they go

and they say oh no there's no prairie

dog down there there's a snake and they

can turn around and get out real easy

i'm very flexible so that was part of

the problem with like the american

version of the ferret is when the

prairie dogs all went away so did the

ferrets because they require prairie

dogs in our diet and he's uh oh they

also have a musk glands or like skunks

and so if you did this fair it's been

decided thank you yeah thank you but but

you do sort of smell it still and um and

yeah they have quite the smelt so what

do you feed them if they're there no

prayer they have a they have a pellet

food that they eat at the zoo and so

he's one of the animals that you take

out in the yeah he's won it you won't

see him if you come to the zoo most

likely but he goes to all sorts of

schools and entertains kids and teaches

kids about the you know the rare

black-footed ferret and so he's sort of

a cream color is are they all the same

internal we have different colors are

other ferrets are much darker what do

you think he weighs oh just listen five

pounds he seems he seems okay yeah he's

a fun little guy he's lots of lunch

they're popular pets but you know before

you get a pet like a fair you want to

make sure that that you can get take

care of them and they do have a lot of

health issues so you you prepared for

vet bills

okay what is he just doesn't like being

on the set is your studies just curious

he won't yes yeah wants to know what's

going on oh my goodness well okay that's

one and and your assistant whose reign

of our on-site educators at the mic

percocet all right Amy thank you for

hero and she's got something else over

there so we'll see what the next down

yeah I gotta have a glove because um if

I don't wear the glove I'll get pricked

because it's an African pygmy hedgehog

alrighty then Oh what did she do oh he

crawled into lose you yeah he's curled

up right now sort of hiding how is she

handling it very carefully

okay so yeah this is a African pygmy

hedgehog it's five to seven thousand

quills and right now just sort of

wondering what's going on they can curl

up into a ball like this looks just like

a man yeah and that sort of a defense

mechanism so they're surrounded by

quills and who would want to eat you

know something like that they're

predators are okay owls and Raptors

slowly coming in where do we find the

Hedgehog in our sup Africa in Africa

okay oh you I wish you could hear me

it's making yes you mentioned white

annoys and just just getting used to

being here and I bet it'll start to walk

around here pretty soon what did and

what do they eat in the wild knee

insects and at the zoo they eat cat food

cat food cat food so they have a liking

for Kent oh there he is there is no face

he's warming up to it yeah but what's

the fuss is does he always like that

sound yeah he's a little scared right

now but he's all hey you think he's

scared I'm stand on my side of it is and

you know they lose five if they have

five to seven thousand quills and they

lose eighty percent of them every year

do they said that they shot him Wow well

that isn't I can't see his feet this

lets me see if I can pick him up no he's

not he's not having any of that is he no

you said to me I don't think he trusts

you Ryan I don't know I don't know if I

trust myself well I've seen his nose I

haven't seen his eyes and soon he has

four little feet under there yeah well I

don't want to frighten hey yeah he's

already feel bad that is yeah it's

currently not yeah well that's wonderful

so these are the kinds of animals you

get to see ya that you go out and do

your education and of course you know we

have your favorite animal snakes and

alligators and of course the skink and

the bearded dragon that will go out all

sorts of animals that are in our

education department addition is not

better than a snake

yeah I don't know what I know snake but

I bet the kids some of the kids I've

seen some of the clips that you I'll

have the children seem to like the

snakes oh yeah I mean there's people

that love snakes and so they're popular

you know Cyrus count everyone somebody's

gonna love it yeah well I oh he's moving

yeah its mother huh so if you don't

touch him he seems to get a little more

comfortable under and come out of his

little football has a defense mechanism

and starts sniffing around at all so if

you had some if you had some food would

he eat it oh you know they give him a

little bit of food and water when we

take him out you see you in there

they're hungry okay all right well you

want to leave him here if you can keep

him here we have maybe two more

questions yeah and we'll wrap up here um

the upcoming events this is about a

month of februari anything interesting

we need to have our visitors know about

well we have a couple events at the zoo

in the month of februari and there of

course around Valentine's Day and the

first one is Johnny's Italian steakhouse

does a nice dinner so you want to take

that special someone out yeah go to our

website and there are instructions on

how to RSVP for a wonderful dinner in

our Discovery Center rooms overlooking

the tropical rainforest and that's I

bleed februari twelfth and thirteenth

and you got RSVP with Johnny's Italian

steakhouse oh that should be and then of

course the City of Des Moines always

promotes the father daughter dance at

the zoo and so you can you can go at GM

gorg and find out information about that

that's always a popular event that's

held out the zoo okay all right then um

one more question wow sooo TV online is

that the same as the zoo cam or is that

something different well the wild zoo TV

is all the segments you might see here

on this this channel Oh regularly and we

separate them out so if you want it you

missed part of that segment about the

alligators you can go over to our

website and find our YouTube channel

okay you can watch it that and you can

also while you I've

heard that you can also watch full

episodes of our zoo TV program right

right here on the DMV or occurrence

right you can watch that live just go to

the website to DM TV and click on watch

live or you can go through our schedule

and find the zoo show and click on that

which will take you to that's right all

the zoo shows online well Ryan thank you

very much for bringing the animals it's

always exciting when you come because

you bring a couple of critters with you

so if you want information about the zoo

you can either go to ww blank Park Zoo

com alright and if you want information

about the events who do they call yeah

just go to our website or you can give

us a call out at the Zoo will and that

telephone number is 285 4722 okay that

wraps up this edition of city talk I

hope you will join us again here on DM

TV city cable channel every month we'll

bring you a different city department

and bring you new information about our

community today's program can be seen

again during the replays on the dates

and times listed on your television

screen you can also watch us online go

to ww dmg org and click on watch live DM

TV is in the Mediacom digital lineup and

you will find us on digital channels 86

and 97 1 for more information visit our

website or call 5152 a 345 00 I'm Amelia

Hamilton Morris thank you for watching

you