FEMA APPROVES DISASTER RECOVERY TEMPORARY HOUSING PROGRAM
Federal officials have approved Governor Kim Reynolds’ request that Iowans in 14 counties including Plymouth County may apply for temporary housing assistance. This is for residents who cannot live in their own homes due to flood or tornado damage.
FEMA’s Temporary Housing program is often used in hurricane zones, but Reynolds made the request late last week to extend it to Iowans in counties declared presidential disaster areas.
Officials estimate over two-thousand homes were destroyed by severe storms that swept through the state in April, May and June. Even more homes are uninhabitable due to serious damage. State agencies have already lined up the recreational vehicles and travel trailers that will be used as temporary housing.
Modular homes may be brought in later if some residents need longer term housing until their permanent home is ready. To be eligible for the program, home owners and renters must have qualified for FEMA’s Individual Assistance Program. Reynolds says in some instances, the R-V may be parked on the same property as a home that’s been damaged or destroyed.
Residents in 14 Iowa counties are eligible. They include Plymouth, Buena Vista, Clay Emmet, Lyon, O’Brien and Sioux. Since damage assessments are still ongoing, additional counties may become eligible. Some 5-thousand homes were impacted by the floods, 2-thousand were destroyed.
LE MARS FARMERS MARKET
The Le Mars Farmers Market will be relocated, after city council action Tuesday. Farmers Market requested the move to a city owned property. They requested Foster Park, O’Toole Park, or the Olson Event Center. After discussing the matter with the Chamber of Commerce, and downtown merchants, the Olson Center became the preferred location. In order to relocate to a city owned property, the Farmers Market must also carry liability insurance, with the city named as one of the insured. Rob Scheitler, representing the market, is working on a policy. Scheitler says the policy would cover all the vendors who attend the Farmers Market. The costs would be part of a vendor fee, collected on the days they attend. Scheitler says there are anywhere up to 16 vendors who take part in the Le Mars Farmers Market. Their intent is to grow the numbre of vendors that take part in the Farmers Market. The council passed a motion to approve the Olson Event Center as the new location. The Farmers Market is open Saturday mornings from May to September at Cork It! on Prospect Street. Scheitler told the council Tuesday that if they can line up their insurance coverage, they could relocate to the Olson Center this summer.
MICROSURFACING PROJECT
A microsurfacing project will take place in southwest Plymouth County, after a contract for the work was approved Tuesday. Astech of St Cloud, Minnesota, was the low bidder for the project at 503-thousand dollars. The work includes resurfacing 8.5 miles of County Road K18, from C38 to Iowa Highway 12. Astech specializes in microsurfacing, a process where a thin seal coat is used to extend the life of the road surface.
The Board of Supervisors approved the contract at their meeting Tuesday.
INJURY ACCIDENT
A Hawarden man was hospitalized after a one vehicle accident six miles west of Sioux Center. The Iowa State Patrol says 76 year old Charles Mc Millan was driving a pickup west on B40 when he crossed the center line, entered the south ditch at a field drive, and came to a stop. The air bags were deployed, but Mc Millan was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident. He was taken by helicopter to Avera Sioux Falls Hospital for treatment. There was no word on his condition.
PETITIONERS ASK REGULATORS’ REVERSAL OF CARBON PIPELINE PROJECT
Officials from seven Iowa counties are asking the Iowa Utilities Commission to reconsider its conditional approval of the Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline project. Shelby County Board of Supervisors chairman Kevin Kenkel says the commission’s decision did not address zoning issues and the counties also maintain that Summit’s pipeline does not benefit the public at large and should not be granted the right of eminent domain. Officials from Woodbury, Dickinson, Emmet, Kossuth, Floyd, Shelby and Wright Counties signed the 16-page challenge filed with the Iowa Utilities Commission. Monday was the deadline for filing the paperwork, asking the Iowa Utilities Commission to rescind Summit’s construction permit. Landowners who oppose the project and the Sierra Club of Iowa have also filed objections.
GRASSLEY CALLS TRUMP’S VP PICK VANCE AN AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY
A U-S Senator from Ohio who once called Donald Trump “reprehensible” and an “idiot” is now the former president’s running mate. Reports say J.D. Vance even referred to Trump as “America’s Hitler” in a Facebook post, but that’s all water under the political bridge, according to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. Calling him the “essence of success,” Grassley notes how Vance came from a poor, broken family to become a U-S Marine, a Yale Law graduate, and a best-selling author. Vance is on record having been a very public critic of Trump, but Grassley says it’s all a matter of context, as many people doubted whether Trump could do the job when he first announced his candidacy in 2015.
