(LE MARS)–The Le Mars City Council has voted 4-to-one to hire a firm for engineering services for the federally funded energy grant. The city will replace a Le Mars Convention Center boiler system dating to Westmar College days. The new heating system can be controlled to serve only areas of the building in use. The federal money will also make energy improvements in other buildings.
Councilmember Delana Ihrke had this response to hiring an engineering firm for ALL the projects in the grant.
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City administrator Scott Langel said the city wanted one source for engineering and repeated some earlier advice for the council.
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Langel also told the council 99.9 percent of Karl Seggerman’s Synergy contract with the city was for the boiler project.
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Ihrke voted no on the council action saying it was a no vote on principle.
According to the council agenda, the $3,750 cost of the engineering by Synergy Energy Engineering of Kingsley is eligible for reimbursement under the energy grant.
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) Animal control officials in Sioux City are looking for any information about a cat found with a nail driven into its head.
The female calico was found on Wednesday by after animal control received a tip.
Animal control’s Cindy Rarrat says it appears the nail was driven into the cat’s head with a nail gun. But oddly enough, the cat seems to be doing fine.
Rarrat says the cat was awake, purring and eating.
The cat, dubbed “Grace,” is at a veterinarian clinic and is scheduled to have surgery on Friday.
Rarrat says authorities are looking for the cat’s owner and those responsible for the nail.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
(Sioux City)–The Iowa Economic Development Board Thursday agreed to provide loans and tax breaks to a couple of large projects that could create hundreds of jobs in Sioux City and Burlington. In Sioux City, wind blade manufacturer T-P-I Composites is planning a nearly 40-million dollar ($40 million) factory that would employ 500 workers. T-P-I already has a plant in Newton and announced this week it was cutting the workforce there to 233 workers. Iowa Department of Economic Development spokesperson Kay Snyder says board members are confident workers being laid off will be brought back later this year.
“The company has indicated that they plan to rebound with their employment starting here in the next few months and be up to 500 jobs, they’re estimating, by February,” Snyder said. The board is giving Sioux City a two-point-five million dollar ($2.5 million) forgivable loan to develop the infrastructure around the proposed plant. T-P-I will also receive tax credits. The John Morrell plant in Sioux City closed last month, leaving 15-hundred (1,500) without a job.
“In a time when the economy is down, looking to bring 500 jobs to a community which has experienced plant closings and downsizing, this project can be a bright spot for that area,” Snyder said.
The Economic Development Board also approved tax incentives for a Case New Holland expansion project in Burlington.
OSCEOLA, Wis. (AP) Polaris Industries Inc. says it will shut down its parts plant in the western Wisconsin city of Osceola (ahss-see-OH’-luh).
The Medina, Minn.-based maker of snowmobiles, ATVs and Victory motorcycles says it’s moving many of the operations to a new facility in the Monterrey-Saltillo area of Mexico.
Polaris will continue to make snowmobiles in Roseau (ROH’-zoh), Minn., and motorcycles in Spirit Lake, Iowa. Some operations will be moved to Roseau and Spirit Lake.
Polaris also says it’s negotiating to sell some of its parts manufacturing processes and equipment in Osceola to suppliers who’d continue making components there.
Spokeswoman Marlys Knutson says the plant currently employs 515 people, who will be allowed to apply for jobs at the other Polaris facilities or with companies that continue producing parts in Osceola.
(COPYRIGHT 2010 BY ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)
ELK POINT, S.D. (AP) A Sioux City man out on bond on a South Dakota rape charge is accused in a hit-and-run in Sioux City, Iowa.
Eighteen-year-old Thomas Varvais of Sioux City was charged with raping a woman and kidnapping her baby last December. He posted $50,000 bond and was released, but now is back in custody in South Dakota’s Union County.
Varvais is expected to plead guilty to the rape charge on Monday under a plea agreement with prosecutors in which the kidnapping charge will be dropped. He could face up to 50 years in prison.
He is scheduled to make his first court appearance in Iowa three days later on an aggravated misdemeanor charge of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in serious injury. Authorities say his truck hit two children riding a bicycle last Saturday.
(An afternoon update of the Iowa News is not available from Associated Press)
(COPYRIGHT 2010 BY ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)
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