By Sam Parsons

The Ottumwa City Council met last night and awarded contracts for the Green Street Sewer Improvements Project. Public Works Director Larry Seals said that this project originated last year, but at the time, the city postponed it in the hopes that supply chain issues would be resolved. The contract was split into two parts with the more substantial part ($1.655 million) awarded to J&K Contracting, LLC, and the smaller portion (~$186,000) awarded to DC Concrete and Construction, LLC.

The council also passed a resolution establishing new fees for services from the city’s Planning Department. The city’s fence permit fee was raised from $35 to $50; community development director Zach Simonson pointed out that this is a flat fee and not based on the valuation of the fence. The city also established a fee for certificates of zoning compliance and set it at $35, which Simonson said is in line with similar fees charged by other cities.

NEW SHARON – The North Mahaska School Board met Monday to interview an internal candidate for the interim superintendent’s position. The board previously accepted the resignation of school superintendent Angela Livezey effective June 30, 2023 at its March 27 meeting. 

The board approved an offer to Tim Veiseth as Interim Superintendent effective July 1, 2023 to replace Livezey and Veiseth accepted. Livezey announced the appointment of Amber Goemaat as NM Elementary Principal beginning July 1.

Livezey has accepted a position a Director of Professional Learning and Leadership with the Great Prairie Area Education Agency. This is a new position with the Area Education Association and begins in July.

Livezey has been at North Mahaska for 15 years and served as elementary principal prior to becoming superintendent in 2015. She currently serves as superintendent and elementary principal. 

Livezey said she was looking forward to this new opportunity to lead others.

“It has been a pleasure to serve the North Mahaska CSD for the past 15 years,” said Livezey in her resignation letter. “Together, with the leadership across the district, the teachers, support staff, and community we have accomplished a great deal. Continuous school improvement and preparing our students to go out into the world prepared to be positive productive citizens has been the focus of our work together.   She can look back and be grateful for the success and progress towards the future.

“While it is extremely difficult to leave my home of North Mahaska, I know the move is a chance to lead in a greater capacity is a good move for our family.” 

Veiseth currently serves the district as the dean of students and behavior interventionist. Goemaat is the current high school principal.

Board of directors has moved to seek candidates for the high school principal’s position through Teach Iowa. The board, after some discussion, felt to go through the process of selecting a search firm and interviewing candidates could take a couple months and would be too close to the beginning of the next school fiscal year. Therefore, since they had an internal candidate they felt good about, decided to appoint Veiseth with the interim title.

According to the unofficial board minutes, the board voted “To approve the process for administrative hire as posting the superintendent position on Teach Iowa for a 1 year interim position and conducting a review of performance in December 2023 before a permanent hire decision is made. The internal candidate will be interviewed by the board if an application is submitted on Teach Iowa and if they are deemed a high quality candidate based on qualifications.”

Veiseth is in his fourth year at North Mahaska. The University of Northern Iowa grad had served eight years as a principal at Oskaloosa Elementary and another four years of teaching in the Oskaloosa schools before becoming the dean of students at North Mahaska. 

“I am super excited,” said Veiseth from his office Tuesday. “We have some awesome things going on and I look forward to moving those forward. We have great people, great kids and a great community. I want to continue that great tradition we have at North Mahaska.

“Collaboration and working as team is what I want to continue to build on. I think it will be an easy transition because we already work well together.”

Goemaat has been at North Mahaska for 18 years and has been junior-senior high principal for the past four years. Prior to that she taught elementary, Title 1 Reading, 7-12 Technology Coach  and K-12 Instructional Coach.

Selection of junior-senior high principal candidates will be done through Teach Iowa, a website utilized by schools to advertise teaching and some administrative positions.

By Sam Parsons

The Oskaloosa City Council met last night and formally approved the city budget and tax levy for Fiscal Year 2024.

The tax levy was set at approximately $15.63 per $1,000 of valuation. The final numbers for the budget include about $39.7 million in total revenues and $43.2 million in total expenditures, with the General Fund balance decreasing by roughly $286,000. General Fund numbers in the budget do not include backfill money from the state due to the Business Tax Credit.

The city also approved an agreement with Mahaska County on a pavement restoration project along Old Highway 163. The low bid from Manatt’s Inc. was approximately $1.15 million, which was about $207,000 over the estimated cost of the project. The city of Oskaloosa would be on the hook for about $110,000 of the total expenses for the project, and councilmember Bob Drost said that he wasn’t concerned about the price increase given the condition of the road right now.

And the meeting saw the police department welcome two new additions: the city’s newest officer, Stephanie Nuno, was sworn in, and the city’s new K9, Rocky, was recognized as being fully certified.

The next regular council meeting with the city of Oskaloosa will be held on April 17.