(LE MARS)–A Le Mars Community School administrator is the choice of a northwest Iowa board of education to fill a superintendent’s job.
The Storm Lake Board of Education is hiring Dr. Carl Turner of Le Mars as the Storm Lake superintendent.
(Image Courtesy Le Mars Community School District )
Dr. Turner has been the assistant superintendent for the Le Mars Community School District since 2005. He has previous experience as principal and assistant principal, teacher and coach with Siouxland schools including Sheldon and South Sioux City.
(Joel Herman of KAYL, Storm Lake contributed to this KLEM News report)
(LE MARS)–Renewable fuels dominated discussion at a Legislative forum in Le Mars over the weekend.
Dave Hoffman of Plymouth Energy and Plymouth Oil in Merrill asked Representative Chuck Soderberg of Le Mars and Senator Randy Feenstra about the E-15 bill and biodiesel production credit.
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Hoffman cited the jobs and export value of even the skin of the kernel of corn.
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The cost to a business to provide the equipment such as a blender pump has been a factor in the limited number of fuel business offering E-85 or other blends.
On Saturday, Feenstra described ethanol and biodiesel as big issues that will probably be talked about this week.
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Soderberg said he saw it as a three-fold issue.
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Of the nation’s 110-thousand gas stations, only 23-hundred have flex fuel pumps. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack last week announced plans to boost flex-fuel pumps by offering grants and loan guarantees to businesses.
(LE MARS)–Water main work in Le Mars will change water service in a Le Mars neighborhood.
Water superintendent Gayle Sitzmann says the water department will shut off the water main from Highway Three and Sixth Avenue to First Street and Sixth Avenue Northeast.
The city water department will change the eight-inch main south of O’Brien and Yoerger Drive.
The water will be shut off after school Tuesday between 3:30 and 4 in the afternoon.
The work will take up to three hours to completed to the point of being able to turn the water back on. Anyone who needs water during that time for meal preparation or other reasons is asked to fill containers for water use before three tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.
Sitzmann extends a thank you in advance for cooperation with the temporary shutoff. He asks anyone with a medical condition who this would drastically effect to call him at 712.305.0205.
(LE MARS)–A new event at the Le Mars Convention Center is a success.
The Le Mars Area Chamber of Commerce Spring Fever Antique Show and Separate Flea Market April 8, 9 and 10th hosted 71 vendor booths. Mary Reynolds from the Chamber says there were 34 antique and 37 flea market booths. The attendance Friday night was 131 and the total count Saturday and Sunday was 1,214. The total attendance is 1,345.
Reynolds says guests and some of the vendors stayed at local hotels and motels.
The nine-member committee that organized the first-ever event, which included Rich Schultz’ motorcycles, will meet to make plans for the future.
Reynolds expects the Antique Show and Flea Market to be held again next year at the about the same time.
An initial review of critiques from the shows vendors indicated 80 percent want to return. Details of a future event will be discussed when the committee meets.
(LE MARS)–Plymouth County jurors called to report during the month of April WILL NEED to report Tuesday, April 12, 2011. Jurors are asked to check in at the clerk of court’s office on the third floor of the Plymouth County Courthouse at one in the afternoon Tuesday.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) A special commission has recommended that the Legislature approve a proposed new map of legislative and congressional districts.
The Temporary Redistricting Advisory Commission voted 5-0 on Monday to recommend that lawmakers approve the new maps. The panel held public hearings across the state last week.
The recommendation sets the stage for a vote in the Legislature on Thursday. Both Republican and Democratic leaders have predicted the plan will win approval.
Gov. Terry Branstad says he’s still studying the proposed new maps. The maps reduce the number of congressional districts from the current five to four because population growth in Iowa has been slower than elsewhere in the country.
A total of 41 state legislators would find themselves in new districts with another incumbent under the plan.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) A lawmaker says he’s worried that a legislative impasse over supplemental spending could force layoffs at the state’s prisons.
Sen. Tom Hancock says prison officials could be forced to lay off workers as early as next month if the impasse isn’t resolved.
Speaking with reporters Monday, Gov. Terry Branstad says he has met with top Democratic and Republican legislative leaders and expressed confidence lawmakers would reach a compromise.
Hancock warned that the prisons are holding about 25 percent more inmates than they were designed for and that staffing levels have fallen.
There are about 2,800 workers in the system, down from more than 3,000 two years ago.
The additional money for prisons is in a supplemental spending measure still being debated.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) The senior advocacy group AARP is responding to criticism of an advertisement by the organization that argues a bill backed by utilities could cause rate increases.
AARP senior state director Bruce Koeppl argued at a news conference that newspaper ads paid for by the group are accurate. The ads claim residents and businesses would pay more if the Legislature approves a bill backed by MidAmerican Energy that would let the utility charge customers in advance for the construction of a nuclear power plant.
Democratic Sen. Swati Dandekar of Marion and others have called the ad misleading.
AARP has more than 370,000 members in Iowa, and many of them have asked legislators to oppose the measure.
The bill has been approved by committees in both the House and Senate.
JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) Authorities will resume their search for the body of an 18-year-old who likely drowned after his boat capsized on the Des Moines River in Polk County.
Friends say Richard Martin knew the river in the area near the Sycamore Park access in Johnston. Authorities say Martin apparently was not wearing a lifejacket when the accident occurred around 2 p.m. Saturday.
Teams searched two miles of the river on Saturday, but the fast-flowing water kept divers near their boats. A search along the banks of the river also proved fruitless.
The Johnston fire chief says the Department of Natural Resources is expected to resume a search for Martin’s body on Tuesday.
Lee Enterprises is taking advantage of investors’ growing appetite for high-yield corporate debt to refinance its debt.
The newspaper company that publishes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch will sell about $1 billion worth of notes due in 2017 and 2018. That will retire nearly all of its existing debt that’s due in April 2012.
Like other newspaper publishers, the Davenport, Iowa media company has been struggling with a decline in advertising. But the economic recovery has slowed the decline. Lee says Monday that it expects to report a revenue decline of 3.5 percent to 4 percent for the quarter that ended March 27, compared with last year. That compares with a 6.6 percent decline last year.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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