LE MARS COMMUNITY SCHOOL BOARD
The Board of Directors of the Le Mars Community School District meets tonight at 6 pm.
The first item tonight’s agenda is a public hearing on the baseball diamond lighting project. The board will review bids for construction, and decide on awarding a contract for the project.
Later on, the school board will hear a presentation on the Le Mars Middle School Literacy Academy.
Among action items before the board this evening is consideration of a redistricting plan for members of the school board. The plan follows the results of the recent US Census.
Tonight’s school board meeting is at the Education Service Center on Lincoln Street SW.
ORANGE CITY PIPELINE
There’s a new pipeline under construction in Sioux County, and it has nothing to do with carbon capture. The city council of Orange City recently approved construction of a new water line, to go along with drilling new water wells at their well site south of Maurice. City administrator Earl Woudstra says this new line will connect to the well field along a different route than the current one. The new line will extend south along county road K-64 , then west along 500th Street. The lines will provide more capacity, and will accomodate the new wells, which will be dug next year.
OPEN PRIMARIES
The only Democrat to win a statewide race this year says it’s time to give independent voters a voice in choosing General Election candidates. State Auditor Rob Sand supports open primaries.
State law requires Iowans to be registered as a Democrat or a Republican to vote in the June Primaries that determine the top two candidates listed on the General Election ballot.
In an open primary, voters choose the top two candidates for each race. Sand also supports ranked choice voting, with voters ranking the list of candidates for each office. Sand says Alaska’s system of open primaries and ranked choice voting is promoting bipartisanship.
A candidate who wins a majority of the vote is automatically declared the winner in a ranked choice system. However, if no candidate reaches that threshold, the second and third choices of voters are tabulated to determine a winner.
ASSAULT ARREST
A Sioux Center man was arrested early Saturday morning as the result of an alleged assault.
The Sioux County Sheriff’s Office arrested Gert Mare, age 29, of Sioux Center, IA.
The arrest stemmed from a report of assault that occurred at at a residence on Harrison Avenue, south of Sioux Center.
Upon further investigation, deputies determined that Mare assaulted a victim during a disturbance that occurred at a residence.
Mare was transported to the Sioux County Jail where he was charged with assault.
The sheriff’s office was assisted by the Sioux Center Police Department and Orange City Police Department.
O’BRIEN FATAL
An Omaha man who was seriously injured last week in a car-semi accident southeast of Sheldon, has died.
48 year old Brian J Williams of Omaha was a former Sheldon resident, according to an obituary from a Sheldon funeral home. The Iowa State Patrol says Williams was was injured last Tuesday when his car ran into the rear axles of a semi trailer on Nettle Ave, southeast of Sheldon. He was flown to a Sioux Falls hospital for treatment. He died Thursday. The driver of the semi involved in the accident was not injured.
WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY
A Winter Weather Advisory has been called for three northwest Iowa counties…Cherokee, Sioux, and Lyon…from noon today until noon tomorrow. Mixed precipitation is expected, starting with a light glaze of ice this afternoon into evening, with more ice accumulation tonight. There’s also a bit of snow forecast – one inch by tomorrow morning, with ice accumulating up to a quarter inch. Winds will be gusty through the period… up to 40 miles per hour. The Sioux County Sheriffs Office this morning advised that roads throughout the county have become slick and ice covered.
MORE BIRD FLU
There are two more cases of bird flu in northwest Iowa. Sunday, the USDA and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship said cases of bird flu was found in commercial turkey flocks in Cherokee and Buena Vista counties. There have been three other cases of bird flu noted this month in those counties. Earlier, Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig said it is unusual for bird flu to continue into the winter months. He says wild birds are causing the spread of the high pathogenic avian influenza, and he anticipates more of it in the spring. He’s preparing to ask the legislature for more funding to deal with infectious animal diseases including bird flu.
LITTLE YELLOW DOG
This year’s Little Yellow Dog is headed to Le Mars.
Cadi, the Mr. Goodfellow’s Charity 2022 Little Yellow Dog was purchased by Bob Campbell, with a winning bid of 12-thousand, 2-hundred dollars at the 87th annual auciton held at the Ho Chunk Center on Saturday.
Campbell has never bid in the auction prior to this year, but decided to see if he could win the soft coated Wheaten Terrier named Cadillac, but Cadi for short:
Campbell grew up in Le Mars and worked for Wells for 44 years.
The dog was named in honor of the late Harold Ruden, who was the little yellow dog auctioneer for more than 40 years.
Over 30-thousand dollars was raised Saturday to buy Christmas toys and gifts for children through the Sioux City Journal’s Mr. Goodfellow fund.
Bob Campbell and family, including Cadi, this year’s Little Yellow Dog
TRUMPETER SWANS RELOCATED
The Woodbury County Conservation Board will relocate three Trumpeter Swans that were on display at the Little Sioux Park Lake near Correctionville. Today, the Iowa DNR is temporarily relocating the swans to Nora Springs, Iowa. Low water levels at Little Sioux Park will not allow the aerator there to function properly, leaving the swans with little to no open water. Lake water levels will be monitored, to determine when they are adequate to return the swans to their new home. The swans are part of an effort to reintroduce them to Iowa.
SPIRIT LAKE VERDICT
A jury found a Spirit Lake man guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a woman. The verdict Friday came against Christian Goyne-Yarns who was accused of shooting Shelby Woizeschke outside GrapeTree Medical Staffing building in February. The prosecution use the 9-1-1 call made by Woizeschke just minutes after being shot where she identified the Goyne-Yarns as the shooter. The defense claimed Goyne-Yarns was not feeling well on the morning in question and was in the restroom at his workplace in Spirit Lake, but co-workers testified he was not able to be located and his pick-up was seen on surveillance video parking at the scene and waiting for the victim to arrive. Sentencing will take place in January.
CDL GRANTS
The application process for a new state program that awards grants to help workers get training for a commercial driver’s license (CDL) opens Tuesday. Iowa Workforce Development’s, Mike Cockrum, says it provides grants to employers, nonprofits and consortiums who need to hire drivers, it gives them some some financial assistance in order to to recruit someone and be able to put them through entry level driver training. That entry level driver training is now required before you can take the C-D-L exam. Cockrum says the grant can be used to work with a third party training provider, or they could become certified themselves. The grant process will opens Tuesday (December 13th) and you can learn more at futurereadyiowa.gov. There’s a banner at the top providing a link to information about the grant. The deadline to file for the grants is February 3rd.
