Police Chief John Wiebold, Boone Police Department, Public Safety, September 17, 2026

Visiting today with Boone Police Chief John Weibald. Morning. He made it in around all the well so far the Puffer Billy layout among other things we'll talk a little bit about that it's different but last time when you came in and visited we kind of well we made it through Raghbri things went really well and then we have coming up back to school and then we got farm progress and super nationals man it's been busy it's been a busy summer so the farm progress show again the one thing was pay a lot of attention to that afternoon traffic again the morning people were getting out and making that making their way through and stuff but afternoon man that really got congested it really did on that especially on that Tuesday um yeah it was kind of surprised us a little bit on how congested they got usually that goes a little smoother but a lot of people I think preloaded that week and went on the first day instead of they saw the weather for the next two days and uh it just was a little congested but we made it through okay they didn't want to get out there in the heat right it's okay for your guys to stand out there that's right no they did we only had I think what I mean it was really congested and they had a lot of things going on I think most local people were doing their best to just avoid the area if they could yep usually do but the assistant's been gonna do a good job of understanding that there's gonna be a lot of traffic there and to avoid the area and but we had a lot outsiders a lot of visitors this year so they they were here yeah they were and then and then a lot of them who the ones I had to laugh about because a lot of our local people well I'm just gonna go down and cut through the ledges and know that's closed too yeah yeah that that construction threw us for a little bit of a loop too because that's usually a good bypass but it's all done now it's all open ready to go and then it was super nationals I mean you just barely get done with all the traffic and everything from the farm progress show and you had people moving into town down on the south side getting ready and then it rained on them and then it got muddy man a lot of traffic for that though and I saw a lot of okay my calls for traffic enforcement were up noticeably on that time to tell you I get the call report in the morning from the communication center and I'm going well that's a quarter to a third of them where traffic stops and yeah I think just about all of them were on highway 30 yeah we during super nationals we know there's a lot of extra vehicles coming in and we do a little lot of extra patrol down there for just for traffic safety in fact we did during the whole week of super nationals we had 135 hours of overtime for the department that's that's a lot yeah a lot of that was spent on traffic enforcement a lot of that was spent the rest of it was spent down at the speedway itself just making sure you know everything runs smoothly and people are safe and that kind of thing so it was a pretty good week we ended up with a lot of traffic citations but actually crimes uh speedway related some of the issues out there yeah we're a little less yeah maybe the weather had something to do oh I don't I mean I think it's just it's generally trending that way um there's fewer and fewer problems every year and we ended up with two uh two OWIs two assaults down there and a burglary so other than that it went pretty well that's not bad that's not bad uh it was good to say yeah that's part of it is we're getting a little older crowd yeah and uh but then again we are getting new people in all the times yeah I think some of it I wonder if it's everything's getting more expensive and so maybe you know even the racing stuff I think is getting more and more expensive those cars are nicer and fancier and the rigs are fancier every year and I don't know if that uh the the costs involve keep people a little calmer because they don't want to ruin their nice stuff but um it's been it's been good so and that's for those that uh the way it's laid out part of it is within the city limits part of it is outside the city limits so both deputies and the pdr all out there and a lot of times responding multiply to calls so yeah the the south campground area is all within the county's jurisdiction and everything north of that is our responsibility I did see a few parking things concerns a few yeah a couple every year yeah but again people are looking for places to park and get as close as they can uh again one of the issues and I know the state patrol always gets very concerned but the people going back and forth across highway 30 I know that's why you pay very close attention to the speed out there absolutely yeah there's a lot of people walking back and forth between uh cases in the speed way or trying to get up on story street walking and and it's we we definitely don't want any accents out there especially any car versus pedestrian things those are always bad on a normal road let alone one that's you know 45 miles an hour well we made it through it now puffer bill now puffer billy days and uh I saw from uh sergeant frazier just if you're going to celebrate be responsible get a designated driver yes uh the big thing that a lot of people are going to see it's a little different layout this year again the chamber's gone with a little different layout and we've already are going to be closing up some of the streets because we're going to start having things moving in yeah they're starting this morning actually the a lot of the streets downtown are closed for parking and they're going to be moving in a lot of the carnival stuff for this already starting today I'm not sure the stage comes in today the big stage or comes in tomorrow morning but there's going to be a big stage downtown and it's going to be a different layout that'll be more eights right next to the green space yes so the way they're doing it this time not on story but you're still they're still looking to have a lot of vendors and a lot of activity going on on story street so yeah story street's going to be closed pretty much from ninth to seventh and then from alley to alley along the side and then keeler also yes seventh to ninth and then yeah i'm going to say ninth both sides probably from the alley all the way over to uh well at least to keeler here yeah we know because they're going to be moving uh carnival into the ninth street parking lot and then probably about the same for eights yes so parking will be at a premium if the train's in your way plan for a little longer route around we're not going to be able to cut through right downtown yeah it should be good it's good they got a they got a full slate of stuff going on for pufferbilly days this year now if mother nature cooperates that's the next part that'll be the big part of it too that's right what happens when uh they uh they go out uh again well art and park really part of it is uh they try to reduce some of that traffic going into mccos park are we still looking at that do you know uh have they given you any plans on what they're trying to do to control some of that you know i haven't seen anything on um road closures within the park okay i'm hoping that um you know the the art and the park part stays in one of the loops and then people can travel freely to and from there because i know that's been a problem in the past of having to park a long ways away and walk in so um you know i'll have to check on that well we'll hope that's all part of that's right they're figuring out anyway and then mother nature's her part of it too we're always at the at the mercy of mother nature for these things including the parade we keep working out of the parade too that'll be a whole thing too so well we've got a lot of it well we'll see what happens we if we could control it uh all our outdoor activities would be just great that's right you know and that's uh the whole other thing that's going on uh some of the other things uh school uh related uh stuff like that uh things are running along smoothly things going good we have our school resource officer in the school this year thankfully and um i know all the activities for the fall are started football and cross country and volleyball and those are all going going strong we do have uh again one of the things we always worry about is again they drop off pick up and things like that seems to be going fairly smoothly knock on wood let me do that i know there were times when what you had to sit there and try to figure out a round around page yeah so now it's turning into apartments so yes i still use it for drop off we got that correct yep we got that uh some of the other things that are happening this time of the year for you new new scams coming out uh thankfully nothing new but they're always they're always trying so the i mean the big thing is if anybody reminder yeah talk to your loved ones if anybody asks for money either sent inside it uh a check sent inside of a book or magazine don't don't mail that that's not a legitimate thing no uh government agency is going to ask for money that way uh government agencies or the irs are not also not asking for gift cards so tell your family if somebody calls and says you desperately have to do this or you're going to go to jail no government agency is asking for gift cards for payment so again they they're very good at doing the scams they're very good so they're very convincing yeah they they do a very good job the the thing that should throw you off is when they ask for money or anything in a very strange way because government agencies are not going to do that i was going to ask you too because one of the things i know that will be coming up for the council and that's uh you've done some work on that that's e-bikes having an ordinance to deal with e-bikes e-scooters uh the electronic transports yes we're bringing a proposed ordinance to the council on monday so um we'll get their input on it but um hopefully that gets goes through and we have some more enforcement options and and just some just more better guidelines that we can get out to the community i know one of the things that you did do and you were doing some of the you did some of the research on some of the council members had other things that they were looking at and doing but you i'm not going to reinvent the wheel i'm going to see who's got what going on and uh well you know if there's something we can use can we adapt it what do we do and basically uh ankeny uh had a pretty nice uh formatted ordinance that only some minor changes they had a little more trails and yeah so yeah so when we were looking at of course we're not the only community having problems with there's a lot yeah everybody is right so um when we're looking at uh writing an ordinance for this there's no sense reinventing the wheel so we reached out to a lot of communities and saw what they had and ankeny's format is they must use the same company for their uh civil code as we do so it it fit ours perfectly um the only thing is they have some streets designated with bike lanes which we don't so there's some wording we have to change in that but otherwise um it was very well written and meets our needs very well in my opinion one of the things you were looking at and you told public safety was it more concerned about safety public safety part of it yeah much more concerned about public safety than than actually enforcing and we're not we're not out there looking to give you know 10-year-old kids tickets for this stuff we don't want them to get hit by cars a lot of the a lot of the issue is uh scooters and e-bikes or even bicycles you know going through intersections without stopping those types of things and we really just want to make sure those kids are safe um and hopefully setting a little bit of guidelines will will help parents be able to educate their kids on how to how to ride safely so do we have the school resource officer reminding them at school well he's going to be when we get there as soon as this is as uh when we ever get an ordinance passed on this we have a flyer pre-made that he can pass out at schools to try to educate these kids as well and that's a big thing too and for parents their parents need to keep reminding them but yes there are hand signals you can use at stop signs whether you're riding a bicycle an e-bike or not and some of those e-bikes go along pretty good yes they do and we just again they just need to follow the rules of the road i mean that'll that'll solve almost all of these problems no different if they're riding a bmx bike or a the old razor scooters that you had a pedal back when in the old days when we had a we didn't have electricity to do it for us they still use them yeah they got bigger wheels can go faster that's right but uh yeah the electric ones really go uh can go zipping around so that uh now we're past the super national part so atvs utvs back on the roads but again uh not really wide open there's still kind of limited on stories uh story street may be eyes now or you'd try to keep them out of the parks if you do that sort yeah that's that's about it otherwise um i will say this program has been very good we have very very few issues with the the utvs and atvs um i mean in fact probably far less issue than we have with the mode rest of the motoring public so um it's been a good program i i i support it and um i know a lot of people those things are not cheap so i guess if you if you spend the money on you want you probably want to ride it you want it want to keep having it uh yeah something that not get hit by something yeah and that was one of the things too when it first came up the people that actually came to the city and asked about it were those riders uh those clubs that uh wanted it done right right and then the state came through with their ordinance and uh kind of adjusted everything else so we adapted absolutely fit that too yeah again it was it's always those that it's those that don't follow the the requirements that where you run into trouble yeah well we've had very very little problems and in fact when i talked to my counterparts statewide uh very few cities have it reported any problems with the atv thing it's it's really working out very well and i know uh i know some that ride them all the time and they just go well i'll just travel a little differently during super nationals and uh if i need to come into town i will otherwise i'll wait until after yep so and a lot of them did and so they'll be back out folks they're gonna be out there that's right around the road is it different for golf carts it's a little bit different for golf carts golf carts are only allowed to drive to and from the golf course um and a lot of that is based on their speed because the utv can keep up with traffic it's less of a traffic hazard than a golf court golf cart that's limited to maybe 10 or 15 miles an hour so well we have that that's right we keep tabs on that too uh otherwise i'm trying to think oh i was going to ask you do we have flock cameras we do not have any flock cameras i'd like to let you know folks we do not and have not and uh i i did not have any plans to um i have my own opinions about those and i didn't think they were right for our community so we never pursued that and we do not have them so some areas make sense uh we don't Des Moines uh that they use but they're pretty restrictive on how they use that's part of the the guidelines so you'd have to put together a plan on how you would want to make information available and how it would be used absolutely i at this point though i i will be shocked if they're not uh outlawed by a code the next legislative session so public will do that that's right that's right that's what the public's good for i mean that's good we do uh other things that are coming up oh we're getting close to halloween okay so now we've gotten past this part i know it's not you but it's well it was you at one time you were part of the the uh group but uh uh the uh pd is getting ready now to move forward with shop with a cop shop with a cop starting we're gonna have trunker treat which is a fundraising for shop with a cop halloween night there's gonna be a parade downtown um so there's a lot going on coming up you know last year they threw some of these well having the trunker treat downtown that's just kind of escalated into its own it is blown way up if you thought it was congested down here try walking around here with 1500 kids yes that's right there's a lot it's a very big thing now and you collaborate with fire department serving uh hot dogs and stuff like that and uh once again it does kind of kick off getting the uh the banks out there and and uh raising money money for shop with a cop and the association has ways to keep traffic of all that so that's right interested make a contact with an office absolutely we we uh greatly appreciate the donations and it's 100 donation funded so we appreciate all of it and i'm looking at uh calendars the way this is going it will be coming up pretty fast for taking nominations i think i already saw some of the forums coming out yep they just posted that the association just posted that on their facebook page so uh they're gonna start start all that stuff coming up it comes up really fast uh for halloween and stuff like that uh it is a saturday night this year a little different uh same same challenges out there same challenges and you know boon always a lot of communities adjust their uh trick-or-treat night but boon always keeps it on halloween and it makes it easier for me to remember and those people so uh i think it'll be just fine and again as always when we get to that time people have your lights on that's right too in the meantime again uh we have had some rainy weather and things like that have you heard anybody coming in i know when we had the hail the other day there was a couple of people already were saying contact me if you have hail damage or something like that yeah watch out for those scams too uh try and try and find local uh uh people that you can trust to fix your properties definitely be in touch with your insurance yes people so yeah all right so uh things we had very successful so far making it through all the super nationals everything else puffer belly days that's the big one uh you're gonna have again how thin is your staff stretched are they all resting up after yeah they're rested up but they'll be fine puffer belly days is just is is always a positive thing so we'll be good do you have some of the others coming out to help uh some of the crossings uh when we get to the parade time i know we'll have some volunteers and um the uh reserves from the sheriff's office we are helping with that too and then the only other thing i wanted to ask is are you gearing up getting ready for another citizens academy next uh we are we love it uh we got a great donation from the um ragbrite committee so uh should be good we're excited hopefully people come out to that because it is a great great program well that'll be we'll have sign up going on after the first of the year for that but uh it's going to be one of those where yeah we're gonna have a lot of things that'll be happening that's right always uh and all right so if you go to the citizens police academy you might be volunteering for some other events and activities well you'll get asked for sure you'll be asked anyway it's all part of being a volunteer so that's right chief job we've all the guests on our program today thanks for joining us thank you