The Riverside City Council recently approved the hiring of a Kalona city intern to assist in preparation for the city’s sesquicentennial this June.

Following discussion with Kalona City administrator Ryan Schlabaugh, the council approved the hire of Roman Kiefer on January 4th to assist in producing the promotional booklet for Riverside’s 150th anniversary. Kiefer is a regional transportation planner for the Cedar Rapids Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization and a Geographic Information Systems mapping and city planning intern for Kalona. Schlabaugh says he is confident in Kiefer’s ability to assist Riverside, “So he did a lot of mapping projects that we have. He’s mapped all of our infrastructure. He’s really done a nice job of helping get us on the technology side a little bit better than where we were before and helped with our website and some other enhancements. He’s a wonderful asset. He’ll be a good addition to their project and we’ll kind of loan him out to them as needed and I think he’ll do a wonderful job.”

Kiefer will be formatting text and images and using editing and design applications to design the pages for Riverside’s booklet. The council approved a payment to Kiefer not to exceed $500, and distribution of the booklets is scheduled for May.