Home News Friday Afternoon News, December 30th

Friday Afternoon News, December 30th

SIMPCO Prepares To Submit Comprehensive Report To City Council

(Sioux City) — During the course of the summer and fall months, representatives from the Siouxland Interstate Metropolitan Planning Council, or better known as SIMPCO, assisted Le Mars city officials in determining the direction of focus for the next 20 years. A draft proposal will be shared with the public during a January city council meeting. Kevin Randle serves as a Regional Planner with SIMPCO and helped coordinate and facilitate the meetings. Randle reviews the various topics from those community meetings.

Randle says those people that participated with the meetings were generally optimistic about Le Mars’ future, and they had a variety of good ideas for the growth and development of Le Mars.

The SIMPCO official offers a sneak peak as to what the report will contain when he addresses the city council during their January 17th meeting.

Randle says he will be seeking feedback from both the city officials and the public before a final version of the recommendations are presented in February. He shares some of the most common ideas that emerged from the comprehensive public meetings.

As for community public facilities, he says what stood out was discussion regarding the Le Mars Public Library.

 

North Liberty Man Accused Of “Murder-For-Hire” Scheme

NORTH LIBERTY, Iowa (AP) – An Iowa man charged in a murder-for-hire scheme has been accused of trying to hire someone to kill a state agent and two other witnesses expected to testify against him.
Authorities say 36-year-old Justin DeWitt, of North Liberty, was charged Thursday with three new counts of attempted murder. A court document says DeWitt met in jail with someone earlier this month whom he thought knew a hit man. The document says DeWitt agreed to pay $25,000 to have an Iowa Public Safety
Department agent and two other people killed before his January trial in the first case.
He’s pleaded not guilty to four counts of attempted murder and four counts of solicitation to commit murder in that case. Authorities say he wanted a business associate and the associate’s family killed.

 

Demolition Of Council Bluffs School Begins

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) – Demolition has begun at the old Walnut Grove Elementary School in Council Bluffs.
The school closed its doors to students in 2014, after the district deemed the school was no longer suitable for use and too costly to repair. At least seven single-family homes will be built on the property after all the school remains are swept away. Construction is expected to start next summer.
The Daily Nonpareil reports (https://bit.ly/2ix5AbF ) that at a planned Jan. 21 event at Thomas Jefferson High School, officials will reveal the contents of a time capsule recovered when construction crews first started the demolition.
District spokeswoman Diane Ostrowski says the capsule box was placed inside a cornerstone of the elementary building on Aug. 17, 1926.

 

Wife Kills Husband During Hunting Accident

ALLISON, Iowa (AP) – Authorities say an Iowa man was fatally wounded when his wife’s gun discharged while they were hunting on Christmas Eve.
Butler County Sheriff Jason Johnson says in a news release that the shooting was reported a little before 11:30 a.m. Saturday near Allison. The sheriff says Kathleen Hummel, of Waverly, told deputies that she and her husband, 47-year-old Kirk Hummel, were rabbit hunting on his parents’ farm when her rifle accidentally fired.
Johnson says Kirk Hummel died before reaching a hospital.

 

Mother Reunites With Son

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – An eastern Iowa woman has reunited with her son nearly 40 years after she placed him for adoption.
Television station KCRG reports (https://bit.ly/2hyXrF8 ) Cheryl Janss (JANS’) embraced Sam Lane at a Cedar Rapids airport Thursday.
Janss, of Cedar Rapids, says she was 16 when Lane was placed for adoption. Lane, now 39 and living in the Dallas area in Texas, began searching for his mother about five years ago. The station says he used an ancestry research website and Facebook to make contact.
Janss says the adoption was aimed at giving her son a better life. Lane, who praised his adoptive parents, says he wanted to thank his biological mother for giving him life.
The pair will spend a few days together before Lane returns to Texas on Sunday.