City To Close 6th Street S.W. For Repairs
(Le Mars) — Le Mars city officials will be closing part of 6th Street southwest for some street repairs today. Those repairs
will be made between Business Highway 75 and the east side of the alley entrance that goes north, behind the Dairy Queen restaurant. City officials anticipate the street will be closed for a week before all the repairs will be made.
County and City Government Entities Meet With Iowa Homeland Security Emergency Management Services
(Le Mars) — City and county government officials from Plymouth and Cherokee Counties met Thursday morning at the Plymouth County Law Enforcement Center in Le Mars with an Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Services
official to begin the process of submitting paperwork for damages sustained from the recent flooding. Leon Freeman informed the group the necessary forms and paperwork that are needed in order to implement funding for the
disaster recovery.
Is the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency prepared should the state encounter additional flooding issues, or other wide-spread disasters? Freeman says they are prepared, and he adds there has not been a cut-off date assigned to the most recent flooding concerns.
Freeman says his office has been busy with managing all the disaster proclamations for the state. He was asked if the state has enough available funds to meet all the disaster claims from the flooding, and any additional disasters that may strike the state this year?
Freeman says the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Managment Services knows and understands it will be a long wait before all the necessary paperwork can be processed to implement disaster relief payments, and he asks
people to be patient as the state agency works through the mounds of applications.
Music Boosters To Hold Pancake Supper – Middle School To Hold Annual Carnival
(Le Mars) — The Le Mars Community Music Boosters will hold its annual pancake fund raising supper on Friday evening at the Le Mars Community High School cafeteria. The pancake supper will feature pancakes and sausages, along with a fruit cup and beverages. Ticket prices are $6. Following the music boosters pancake supper, people will want to go next door to attend the
Le Mars Community Middle School Carnival. Steve Shanks is the principal for the Le Mars Community Middle School and talks about the 47th annual event.
Shanks says the carnival features several types of games of chance, and other fun activities.
The Middle School principal says the proceeds from the carnival go to help offset any expenses for Middle School programs and curriculum.
Admission is only a dollar, with ticket prices at twenty-five cents each.
The Middle School Carnival will go from 6:30 to 8:45 p.m. inside both Middle School gymnasiums.
Siouxland Garden Show Begins Today
(Sioux City) — The 12th annual Siouxland Garden Show begins today and will run through Saturday. This year, the garden show moves back to familiar territory. It will be held at the Delta Center, formerly known as the Marina Inn Conference Center in South Sioux City, Nebraska. During the two days, more than 24 different speakers will be offering educational sessions
discussing various aspects of garden care, landscaping, creating a butterfly habitat, and even a session focusing on the Emerald Ash Borer. There will be features appealing to children as the Iowa State University Insect Zoo will be on hand. The garden show will also host a winter farmers’ market.
Admission is just $5 with children under 12 can get in free.
Flooded Communities Still Without Drinking Water
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Several communities along the Missouri River continue to struggle to restore drinking water service weeks after massive flooding swept through the area.
People who live in the affected Nebraska and Iowa towns have had to adjust to boiling water before drinking it or relying on bottled water while crews work to repair the damage.
The challenges each town faces after last month’s flooding differs, but they share the goal of restoring safe drinking water service quickly.
Until then, Glenwood, Iowa; Hamburg, Iowa; and Peru, Nebraska; continue to truck in thousands of gallons of water to town daily.
In Glenwood, officials used a boat this week to reach one of their three wells inside the water treatment plant and make repairs, but it will still be several more weeks before safe drinking water flows again.
State Senate Turns Down Felon Voting Rights Bill – Reynolds Disappointed
(Des Moines) — A senate committee has failed to take a vote on one of Governor Kim Reynolds’ top legislative priorities, permanently sidelining the plan for this year.
Last week, the Iowa House voted 95-to-2 in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment that would automatically restored felon voting rights once an inmate is paroled. Senator Brad Zaun (ZAHN) is the Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and he says there weren’t enough Republican votes on his committee to pass it.
The conditions Zaun envisions adding are things like requiring a felon to repay restitution to victims — and forever banning felons who’ve been convicted of murder, rape or child abuse from voting. Governor Reynolds issued a written statement, saying she was disappointed in this setback. Reynolds said she “will not give up the fight for Iowans who deserve a second chance.” Zaun says as a long-time lawmaker, he’s seen other governors have their priorities fail to advance in the legislature. Plus Zaun says it takes four years, at minimum, to get a constitutional amendment passed through the legislature and put on the ballot for voters to decide.
The DEMOCRATIC Leader in the senate called the situation “shameful” and pledged that Democrats will work with any willing Republican who wants to advance the governor’s priority. Senator Janet Petersen of Des Moines also called on the
governor to issue a temporary executive order that would restore felon voting rights until a permanent policy can be enacted through the constitutional amendment.
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University Of Iowa To Pay Off Contractors
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — University of Iowa officials have decided to pay contractors millions the contractors said they were still owed for work on the Hancher Auditorium and the university’s Stead Family Children’s Hospital.
The officials will ask the Iowa Board of Regents at its next meeting to raise the project budget in order to pay Merit Construction $9 million and Modern Piping nearly $18 million.
Modern Piping had sued, saying it incurred substantial expenses because of miscommunication, budget overruns and design changes. The university had appealed an arbitrator’s decision favoring Modern Piping and then appealed a district court ruling that said the university had to go through arbitration to resolve its dispute with Modern Piping.
On Wednesday the Iowa Court of Appeals upheld the district court ruling.
Southwest Iowa Man Sentenced For Possessing Child Pornography
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — A western Iowa man has been sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison for having child pornography.
Federal prosecutors for Iowa say 68-year-old Salvatore Lawrence Bruno was sentenced Wednesday in Council Bluffs to 97 months in prison for a count of possession of child pornography.
Prosecutors say a child told officials in January 2018 that Bruno had shown him or her child pornography. Council Bluffs police conducted a search of Bruno’s home and found a computer hard drive and memory card that contained over 5,700 images of child pornography. Bruno pleaded guilty to this charge in November 2018.
O’Rourke Compares Trump To Hitler
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is comparing the rhetoric used by President Donald Trump to describe immigrants to the rhetoric used in Nazi Germany.
At a town hall in Iowa on Thursday, O’Rourke called out “the rhetoric of a president who not only describes immigrants as rapists and criminals but as animals and an infestation,” in response to a question on how he would address attacks from Republicans.
The former congressman from Texas says, “Now, I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect that in the United States of America.”
O’Rourke says he will avoid using similar rhetoric because “if we descend into that pettiness and meanness and those personal attacks, I’m not sure that we can win.”
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
