Treynor administrator says county’s towns rise or fall together
Treynor City Administrator Mike Holton does not believe any town in Pottawattamie County can make it on its own, including his own. “If Treynor was by itself, it would die on the vine,” Holton said. “I know that’s a harsh thing to say.” He said Treynor depends on neighboring towns such as Avoca, Oakland, Carson, Macedonia and Neola, and all of them depend on Council Bluffs. Council Bluffs, in turn, depends on the strength of the rural county. “It really is a symbiotic relationship,” he said. Holton, who has worked in community development for 25 to 30 years and came to Treynor from Nebraska about six years ago, said he approaches the job through what planners call asset-based community development. That approach focuses on a region’s strengths and the skills of its people rather than its problems. He said those strengths only add up when communities connect them. “They get so bogged down in their own world that they forget that it’s a bigger world out there and we all need to work together,” he said.
Holton credited a long list of partners with helping Treynor grow. He named the Western Iowa Development Association, Advance Southwest Iowa Corp., the Iowa West Foundation, the Community Foundation for Western Iowa and the Omaha Community Foundation. He said regional planning agencies, including the Metropolitan Area Planning Agency in Omaha and the Southwest Iowa Planning Council in Atlantic, help small towns with strategic and comprehensive plans they could not produce alone. Holton said he is free of the old high school rivalries because he came from outside the area, and he enjoys seeing other towns succeed. “All of us are looking for what’s best for our citizens,” he said.
Much of Treynor’s population works in Council Bluffs and Omaha, and Holton said that closeness makes the town a good fit for families. When he arrived, Treynor had about 900 residents, and he said it now has about 1,300. His first project was the Heartland Addition, a former cornfield that now holds 29 new homes. He said the development added $12 million to $15 million in property valuation. A new subdivision of 37 homes is next, and the first five recently went before the planning and zoning commission. Holton said residents have told him they do not want the explosive growth seen in some fast-growing Nebraska suburbs. He said the town’s water, wastewater and other infrastructure could comfortably serve about 3,000 people. “Growth comes with a price, and if you go too fast, you lose that identity,” he said.
Holton said houses alone are not enough, and the town has worked to give people other reasons to live there. A historic mural across from City Hall, funded in part by an AARP grant and painted by a local artist, was dedicated recently. A second mural, designed like a postcard stamp, stands outside TS Bank.
The recreation area developed by Vision Treynor now includes a splash pad, an inclusive playground, a ninja course, a trailhead and new pickleball courts, along with a new road around the area. Holton credited a resident group called Treynor’s Tomorrow with work on the farmers market, murals, signs and safety projects. He said much of what happens in town comes from residents rather than City Hall.
Holton said history remains part of each town’s identity, even when the reason it was founded, such as a railroad, is gone. He is already looking ahead to Treynor’s 125th anniversary, which he said falls in 2029, and to how the town will look five and 10 years from now. “I’d like to help them grow the right way,” he said.
