DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAUCUSES
The Democratic National Committee has voted to eliminate Iowa from the list of states that will start the party’s 2024 presidential campaign.
South Carolina will replace Iowa as the lead-off state, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada, then Georgia and finally Michigan — a sequence President Biden recommended in December. Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison of South Carolina says these changes are long overdue.
The delay in announcing the results of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses due to a faulty smart phone app intensified criticism of the caucusees, after decades of being first in the nation. Leah Daughtry of New York, the former chief of staff of the Democratic Party, says Iowa law doesn’t give Iowa Democrats the divine right to defy party rules.
Scott Brennan, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairman, is a member of the Democratic National Committee. He warned the committee that two of the states selected to be in the early group cannot hold their primaries on the dates national party leaders have set. Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman Rita Hart says the party will move ahead with its new vote-by-mail plan for the 2024 Iowa Caucuses.
ORANGE CITY COUNCIL
The Orange City council will meet in regular session this afternoon.
The council will consider an official statement outlining the purpose for a proposed issue of General Obligation Capital Loan Notes. These will help fund a new park,and intrastructure near the new MOC-Floyd Valley Elementary School. The city council will also set property tax rates for the general fund budget in the next fiscal year. Other items include wellfield improvements, extension of 14th Street SE, and construction of a new street into the former airport property.
NUISANCE RACCOONS
An Iowa lawmaker is working on a bill that would give the owners or tenants on agricultural properties permission to kill raccoons that are a nuisance. Representative Dean Fisher of Montour says raccoons have become an absolutely nuisance to farmers and landowners in rural Iowa. The hunting season for raccoons had been limited from November 5th through the end of January, but in December the Iowa Conservation Commission approved allowing raccoons to be trapped year round. Fisher says trapping alone won’t fix the overpopulation problem because the market for raccoon pelts has collapsed. Under current law, Iowans may only kill a raccoon that’s a direct threat to humans or livestock. Otherwise, Iowans must contact a licensed wildlife control business to trap raccoons that are a nuisance. Representative Fisher says that’s just not workable.
JOY HOLLOW SALE
The Nature Conservancy has recently purchased 356 acres of land in western Plymouth County. Grahamm Mc Gaffin, state director of the Nature Conservancy says Joy Hollow, a former Girl Scout camp, will expand conservation ground in the northern Loess Hills.
The Joy Hollow property is adjacent to two other conservation areas in that part of Plymouth County.
The Nature Conservancy will manage Joy Hollow, as they also manage the Broken Kettle Grassland. McGaffin says the three entities, including Five Ridge Prairie, already work together on conserving habitat, and that effort will continue.
Once a plan is completed, Mc Gaffin says parts of the Joy Hollow area will be open to the public but, some parts cannot.
The Girl Scouts will still use the campground at the site. The Nature Conservancy is discussing development of the 356 acre property under a US Forest Service program.
McGaffin says one of the Nature Conservancy’s priorities is preserving prairie at Joy Hollow.
A combination of donations and grants helped pay for the 1.2 million dollar purchase of Joy Hollow. The area was purchased in December for 1.2 million dollars. Funding for this purchase came from a number of sources, including the US Forest Service; The Gilchrist Foundation; John and Karen Gleeson; the Missouri River Historical Foundation; the Savin Foundation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service; and a habitat grant from the Loess Hills Audubon Society.
PIPELINE PROMOTOR
A northwest Iowa farmer is speaking out in favor of carbon pipelines. Kelly Nieuwenhuis, who farms near Primghar, is calling on what he says is the silent majority to join him in speaking out for carbon capture utilization and storage, or C-C-U-S. Nieuwenhuis calls opponents of such projects, like the Sierra Club, extremist environmental groups.
Nieuwenhuis says the Sierra Club has three reasons for fighting against carbon capture and the pipelines: they oppose the livestock industry, they oppose production agriculture, including genetically modified corn.
Carbon Intensity, or CI, is a way to measure how well a company manages its carbon output. The lower the score, the more carbon-sensitive markets are willing to do business with you. Nieuwenhuis says an ethanol plant’s base CI score is around 70, and a carbon pipeline lowers that score around 30 points. He questions why the Sierra Club is opposing things that will help meet their own goal.
Niewuenhuis says he’s negotiated with the pipelines and received everything he asked for regarding his land and how they’ll use it. He says the argument pipelines will ruin farmland is false.
Nieuwenhuis serves on the board of directors for Siouxland Energy, an ethanol production plant in Sioux Center, and he’s also the chair of the National Corn Ethanol Committee.
OKOBOJI RESCUE
An elderly man and his dog were rescued after the man’s vehicle plunged through the ice in Dickinson County Saturday. The Dickinson County Sheriff says the unidentified driver is 83 years old. His Jeep went through the ice under the Highway 71 bridge at the lake channel at Okoboji. Five men went into the icy water to rescue the man and his dog. The driver was taken to a local hospital and was not seriously injured. The dog is also doing well. The five rescuers were Joe Salmon and Corey McConnell of Spirit Lake, Kody Harrelson of Nevada, Cody Chester of Estherville, and Chris Parks of Hawarden. This is the third time a vehicle fell through the ice at that spot this winter.
CHILD ENDANGERMENT
A Hull man was arrested last week on a child abuse charge. The Sioux County Sheriffs Department investigated a report of child abuse that occurred last Thursday. Investigators determined that Travis Even, 29, struck a two year old child, causing minor injury. Even is charged with child endangerment resulting in bodily injury. The Iowa Department of Human Services assistated in the investigation.
IOWA TECHER SHORTAGE
The non-union association for teachers is joining other groups that represent educators to warn of a teacher shortage in Iowa. Nathan Arnold is director of legal services for Professional Educators of Iowa, a group formed in 1981 as an alternative to the state teachers union. Arnold says Iowa schools used to have a slew of applicants for open positions and were able to compete for the best teachers, but now they’re competing with the private sector where the pay and working conditions are often much better than in Iowa schools. Arnolds made his comments this week at a statehouse hearing about the G-O-P proposal to provide a three percent increase in next year’s state funding formula for public schools.
