West Peoria dedicated signs on both ends of Park Road to local musician Jimmy Binkley on Dec. 11. Park Road was chosen because of Binkley’s 12 years entertaining at Sky Harbor. Mr. Binkley died recently; his life was celebrated at this time because of his many years entertaining senior citizens in homes, especially during the Christmas season. He gathered small gifts for “his babies” as he called the people who prized and valued his time with them. The generosity of his time, talents and loving attitude will be honored by these signs naming Park Road as honorary Jimmy Binkley Road. The small group attending cheered as Darryl Klusendorf, owner of Sky Harbor, unveiled the signs. After his death, many area people donated gifts and money to carry on Binkley’s traditions. Friends and family took these donations to the various senior facilities in the area.

Judge Jodi Hoos, Tenth Circuit Court, gave an interesting talk at the December Neighborhood Watch meeting about media in the courtroom and the Nathan Leuthold case that was covered by Dateline NBC last year. Deputy Meeks followed with an update on criminal activity in the area. The next Watch meeting will be 6 p.m. Jan. 13 in City Hall. The West Peoria Residents Association will meet 6 p.m. Jan. 14 in City Hall. The agenda will focus on projects for next year. The public is welcome. The Beautification Committee will meet to remove the holiday garland from the Welcome Wall, City Hall and the Township Building. Pans for the spring plantings will be on the agenda. This committee welcomes anyone who likes working with plants.

Seniors on the Go enjoyed a Christmas pot-luck and gift exchange in December. The next meeting will be 1 p.m. Jan. 28 in the Woodridge Building. Susie Mohnen will provide instructions for making origami.

As the Page Turns, the West Peoria Book Club, selected books for reading in the upcoming months. Anyone interested in the book club, call Maggie Moore at 673-0535 or Loretta Fehl at 637-0326.

The 28^th Annual Stuff-a-Bus Food Drive had a container in West Peoria City Hall for collections of food and monetary donations. Donations filled the large container and helped make lives easier for clients at Friendship House of Christian Service. CityLink has worked with Friendship House, Kroger and several other organizations on this annual month-long food drive since the drive’s inception. Since January 2015, more than 92,500 meals were provided to families dealing with hunger. This is a very valuable service to many vulnerable members of the Peoria community. Total weight of the food collected on the bus this year was 14,910 pounds or 7.45 tons. Another 3,453 pounds were donated directly to Peoria Friendship House for a total collection of 18,363 pounds or 9.18 tons. There is a continuing need at Friendship House for food donations.

Winter weather parking bans will be posted on all local television stations. All streets in West Peoria are snow routes. Residents should get vehicles off West Peoria streets if two inches or more of snow is predicted.

The City of West Peoria is implementing a notification system available through text or email. The system will be used to communicate public safety tips and community event information. For those interested, subscribe to the service using one of two methods. By text: Compose a text to 23559 with @westpeoriaupdates in the body of the text. By email: sign up to receive your notifications via email at: https://cel.ly/signup. Complete the signup form and at the next step in the process, join the cell westpeoriaupdates. The subscription can be ended anytime by emailing or texting OFF. Anyone with questions regarding this opportunity, please contact April Silver via phone or text to (309) 369-2104 or via email at: city clerk@cityofwestpeoria.com.