Local corner
Altoona, Iowa, up close.
Council meetings, member profiles, votes, and the latest verified local records — kept current in one place, sourced directly from the City of Altoona.
Checking the next Council meeting…
Altoona City Hall Council Chambers, 900 Venbury Dr., Altoona, IA 50009
Regular Council meetings are typically held the first and third Monday of the month at 6:30 P.M.
Confirm the current posted agenda before attending — holidays and cancellations can change the schedule.
Before the meeting
What was on the last agenda, and how to be heard
Recent meetings' roll-call items
The two most recent meetings with business, newest first. Approving the agenda and the minutes and adjourning are left out, and a meeting with nothing else is skipped. In agenda order, numbered by the City's agenda item. Each links to its vote record.
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Recent roll calls with a nay, abstention, or absence
The last four meetings that had one, newest first, in agenda order. Only named roll-call positions are shown; aye, nay, abstain, and absent are never inferred from totals.
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How to be heard
Every regular Council agenda opens with Citizens request to address council, a slot for any topic not on that night’s agenda. What speakers raise there goes into the official minutes, and officials sometimes answer on the spot or direct staff to follow up. Items that are on the agenda, such as public hearings, have their own comment period. Check the posted agenda for the meeting time and any remote-participation options, or see the next meeting on the homepage.
Public-comment prep
- Find the item number and exact agenda language.
- Write one clear request or question.
- Bring the primary source URL and page or item locator.
- Separate what the record shows from what you believe should happen.
- Verify the final minutes after the meeting before calling a vote final.
Primary sources: the Mayor & Council page, the agendas and minutes archive, the election information page, and this site’s sourcebook. Use this page as a navigation aid, not a substitute for the official agenda or approved minutes.
The mayor and council
Current roster
Terms, how to reach each member, and attendance are on the City Council page →
Recent Altoona records & context
Recent reviewed Altoona coverage
This mixed feed includes City records, source pages, and clearly labeled analysis or external context. A Council action is described only when the cited record documents that action.
Loading the latest reviewed local records…
Open records help
Need Altoona records? Start with Iowa Chapter 22.
Our local records guide explains what Iowa’s open-records law generally makes public, how agencies respond, what fees can cover, and how to route a city request through Altoona’s public-records form or the City Clerk’s office.
By the numbers
Altoona by the numbers
Citywide Census Bureau estimates and the offense totals the Altoona Police Department reports to the FBI. Every figure describes the whole city. None describes a street, a household, or a person.
Census estimates
Loading the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey figures…
Show the Census figures
Earlier five-year estimates
Incomes and police pay
Citywide Census income estimates beside the hourly pay range in Altoona’s police contract, as listed on Public pay. Loading…
Show the incomes and police pay chart
What each line is per: Per household adds up everyone in one home, often more than one earner. Per person spreads all income across every resident, including children and retirees. Per earner is the middle value among people 16 and older who had any earnings.
- A pay rate is not total compensation. Overtime, longevity and assignment pay, and benefits are not included, and no figure here is what any one employee earned.
- Census income is a survey estimate for the whole city, with a 90 percent margin of error. Median earnings counts anyone who had earnings, full-time or not.
- The chart pairs each year’s police contract rate with the Census five-year estimate ending that same year (each vintage is its own overlapping five-year window, in that vintage’s own final-year dollars, not adjusted for inflation across years), so a change smaller than the whiskers may not be real.
Offenses reported to the FBI
Loading the FBI Crime Data Explorer figures…
Show the FBI charts and tables
Violent offenses
Rate per 100,000 residents, full years
Offenses Altoona police reported
Clearances Altoona police reported (offenses from any year)
Violent offenses table
Property offenses
Rate per 100,000 residents, full years
Offenses Altoona police reported
Clearances Altoona police reported (offenses from any year)
Property offenses table
- Census figures are survey estimates with a 90 percent margin of error (±). A difference smaller than the margins may not be real. Five-year periods overlap, so compare vintages with care.
- FBI figures count offenses the department reported. They are not every harm, call for service, arrest, or conviction, and they cannot show where anything happened or whether any policy or technology worked.
- A clearance is an offense the department reports as closed by an arrest or by “exceptional means” (for example, the suspect died or the victim declined to cooperate). A year’s clearances can close offenses from earlier years, so they are not a share of that year’s offenses, not unique cases solved, and not convictions.
- Rates per 100,000 residents come from the FBI. Iowa and U.S. rates depend on how many agencies reported that year.
- This series runs back to the earliest year the FBI Crime Data Explorer publishes for this agency (1985). Two FBI reporting-method changes fall inside that range (the 2013 revised rape definition and the 2021 retirement of the older Summary Reporting System); a change across those years can reflect the definition or system change rather than reported crime.
- A year can have all 12 months reported and still be a reporting-collapse year: when fewer than half of Iowa’s or the nation’s agencies reported to the FBI that year, Altoona’s own figures for it are withheld here (shown as a gap in the chart and “figures withheld” in the table), never published as zero.
By the numbers
Residential sale-price trend, 1990-present
Loading the property-value trend…
- This is the median price and count of arm’s-length (“Good” analysis quality) residential sales each year — a sold-parcel sample, not a full parcel-roll census and not a total assessed value. A year with fewer than 20 sales in a city is shown suppressed (a gap in the line), not as a small, unreliable number.
- Dollars are nominal for their own year, with no inflation adjustment across the range.
- Jurisdiction is the Polk County Assessor’s own jurisdiction code, not a published city-limit polygon.
- Cities shown are every city in the Des Moines metro ring around Altoona with a residential sales export actually archived here — not every city within 30 miles.
By the numbers
Business parcels by distance to a mapped camera
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| Type | Distance | Parcel groups |
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Quick facts
Members, recent votes, and records
Explore the current roster, recent named roll-call positions, member contact information, and source-linked vote history in one dedicated place.
Use the city request form or call the City Clerk’s office
Altoona routes city public-records requests through its online form. For follow-up, the city’s public-records page directs requesters to the City Clerk’s office at (515) 967-5136.
Council meeting nights
- Loading the archived meeting schedule…
Check the official agendas and minutes archive before relying on any date.
What the released ALPR records show
Contracts, invoices, the ALPR policy, and the department’s memos, redacted, with what the batch shows and what it does not.