OSKALOOSA — The Mahaska County Auditor’s Office has announced changes to open hours for the Mahaska County Courthouse for Monday, February 27.
The County Attorney’s office, Clerk of Court, and Recorder’s office will be open from 8am-12pm. Meanwhile, the county Assessor, Auditor, GIS/Information Tech, and Treasurer/Auto/Drivers License offices will be closed all day.
For questions, contact the courthouse at 641-673-4940.
KNOXVILLE, Iowa – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District, announces temporary single-lane road closures to Highway T15 across the Red Rock Dam beginning February 27. Closures will only be in effect Monday through Friday each week. The road will be fully open to traffic on the weekends during this period. Partial closures are expected to last five weeks and are necessary for preventive maintenance to the Red Rock Dam.
Starting April 5, a full road closure to Highway T15 over Red Rock Dam is scheduled and will last through approximately May 30. During that time, a detour will be in place. Additional partial and full road closures may be needed through 2024 for rehabilitation projects on the dam.
For more information, please contact the US Army Corps of Engineers at Lake Red Rock at 641-828-7522 or via email at lakeredrock@usace.army.mil.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — Draft U.S. rules would allow soy, oat, almond and other drinks that bill themselves as “milk” to keep using the name. The Food and Drug Administration says plant-based beverages don’t pretend to be from dairy animals and U.S. consumers aren’t confused by the difference. Dairy producers have called for the FDA to crack down on the use of the term milk. The rules released Wednesday also call for voluntary extra nutrition labels that note when the drinks have lower levels of nutrients than dairy milk. In recent years, the number of plant-based drinks has exploded to include dozens of varieties, including cashew, coconut and hemp.
By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)
The Iowa Supreme Court heard arguments in a request by the state to dismiss a lawsuit against the governor over the release of public records during the COVID pandemic.
The records were released 18 months after the request when the lawsuit was filed by the Iowa ACLU on behalf of journalists. The attorney for the governor, Eric Wessan, says the administration followed the law because it never denied the request. “In order to find a violation, there has to be a refusal. There was no refusal here, as is evidenced by the fact that Governor produced all of the responsive records,” Wessan says.
Chief Justice Susan Christensen says this approach could require anyone who requested open records to eventually hire a lawyer to get an agency to comply. She says that could be expensive and some people could not afford to do that. “What can someone do not have to hire a lawyer to make it happen?,” Christenson asked. “To avoid hiring a lawyer, an individual requester can try to clarify a timeline. They can say, can you turn this over in a certain period of time?,” Wessan responded.
The attorney for the ACLU, Thomas Story, says the state should not be allowed to stall and force a lawsuit. “The thing that is missing from the state’s argument is sort of the bottom line assumption of these laws, which is that public records are the public’s records,” He says. “The state is holding them for us. Right. They’re a trustee and that means that they have a duty to provide them to the public promptly upon request.” Wessan says it’s an important part of democracy.
Wessan says the governor’s office gave very little response to the records request other than to acknowledged they received the request. He says there should be some reason given for not producing the records. “That’s the test right, what about the size. Did it ask for voluminous records. What about the nature? Did it require substantial review and redactions? these are things we are asking about. I am not asking the governor’s office to tell me about everything it was doing,” Story says. He says the strategy was to delay and force a lawsuit. “This was just straight ignored by the lawful custodian at the highest level of government.” he says.
The Supreme Court will issue its ruling at a later date.
By Sam Parsons
The Pella City Council met earlier this week and finalized the 2023 Bos Landen Golf Course fees.
This will be the first year that the city will be fully responsible for course operations. In a staff memo to the council, the new fees were described as being “comparable to similar golf courses and consistent with previous years when the course was operated by management firms.” Minimum and maximum fees were set and some of the highlights included a single membership fee totaling between $1,600 (min) and $2,200 (max), a family membership fee totaling $2,300 (min) to $3,500 (max), lessons ranging from $20-200, and greens fees ranging from $10-75 for both 9-hole and 18-hole rounds. The full breakdown is available on the Pella city website and the new fee structure was approved unanimously.
The council also received an update on their sidewalk inspection program. This past year, the city inspected sidewalks primarily in the southwest quadrant of the city after inspecting the northeast and northwest parts of the city in 2018 and 2019. City administrator Mike Nardini gave some of the key numbers from the inspection and what comes next for the city.
The council agreed that they will most likely address the defective panels through the same process they have used previously, though no action was taken this week.
By Sam Parsons
The Oskaloosa City Council met earlier this week and held a public hearing on their Maximum Property Tax Dollars for the upcoming fiscal year. The total tax levy represents a 12.66% increase from the previous year and Mayor Dave Krutzfeldt provided some reasoning behind that.
The total tax levy in the amount of $5,351,633 was approved without objection.
The council also discussed an application from Clow Valve to the Iowa Economic Development Authority’s High Quality Jobs Program. The company is planning a major expansion to their Oskaloosa iron foundry on 17th Avenue East with an estimated construction cost of nearly $70 million. The application to the IEDA’s High Quality Jobs Program, which in this case incentivizes job retention for the planned upgrades, requires a local match, which will come in the form of a 10-year tax abatement estimated to total $1,157,142. The exemption will occur after construction is completed. The resolution approving the application was passed.
By Sam Parsons
The Oskaloosa Indians’ boys team entered the 3A playoffs with a 3-18 record and a first round matchup on the road at the #6 Newton Cardinals on Monday as a heavy underdog. The Indians had lost to the Cardinals 61-39 in their first matchup this season and then 79-43 in their second, and the Cardinals had only lost one game to a 3A opponent all season (to #1 ranked Bondurant-Farrar). In short, expectations were generally low for the Indians’ first round game.
The team responded by playing like they had nothing to lose. And it worked.
The Indians gave the Cardinals a run for their money that they certainly weren’t expecting, but not without early adversity. The Cardinals jumped out to an early lead and were up 31-23 at halftime, leading by double digits for stretches of the first half. Once again, Osky was having a difficult time containing 6’5″ senior Cardinal forward Cole Plowman along with senior guard Brody Bauer.
But in the 3rd quarter, the Indians flipped a switch and got back into the game. A late-quarter rally saw the Indians shock the crowd as Waylon Bolibaugh and Max Roach started burying jump shots to tie the game. In the final seconds of the 3rd quarter, it was 43-43; at this point in the previous two meetings between the Cardinals and Indians, the game had already been decided.
The Cardinals responded with a heads-up play in the final seconds to go down the floor quickly and lay in a bucket to take a 45-43 lead heading into the fourth; and unfortunately, while the energy on the Oskaloosa side of the gym was now at a new high, the Cardinals would use that basket as a kick-start to put the game away.
That last basket of the 3rd quarter began a 13-0 run for the Cardinals to go up 56-43 early in the 4th. From there, Newton kept Osky at a safe distance. The Indians were unable to generate another rally to make it a game in the final minutes and their upset bid came up short, 70-56. It was an admirable display of effort for the team in their final game.
The Cardinals (15-6) will be hosting Fairfield in their second round game on Thursday. The Indians (3-19) graduate 3 seniors: Waylon Bolibaugh, Jakob Stek, and Brody Allman.
PLAINS, GA (AP) — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has entered home hospice care after a series of short hospital stays. The Carter Center said in a statement Saturday that Carter, 98, “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.” Hospice care is treatment designed to make patients comfortable and to reduce pain and suffering in their final days. It is usually home-based and reserved for those declared by two physicians to be terminally ill, with six months or less to live. Hospice care may include medicine but only to reduce symptoms, not with the intent to cure any illness.
By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)
A bill to reinstate the death penalty in a limited number of cases is eligible for debate in the Iowa Senate.
The bill would make those convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering a person under the age of 18 eligible for a death sentence. Republican Senator Julian Garrett of Indianola, a retired attorney, would vote to make the death penalty an option in far more cases.
“Given how difficult it is to get a bill passed in this legislature, we’re narrowing it down as much as we possibly can,” Garrett says.
The bill cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 10-8 vote. Senator Janice Weiner, a Democrat from Iowa City, says it’s an international embarrassment that some U.S. states still have the death penalty. “It puts us right in line with Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and North Korea,” she said.
Other Democrats, like Senator Tony Bisignano of Des Moines said if there’s a mistake and an innocent person is put to death, there’s no reversing that. “The state should not be in the business of killing people,” Bisignano said during committee debate this afternoon.
Garrett considers the death penalty a deterrent and he said a wrongful conviction is a worthwhile trade off. “If we make a mistake now and then and, as I say, mistakes under current technology are miniscule and we can save some innocent women’s lives down the road, that’s where the trade off is,” Garrett said.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has said he could support the death penalty on moral grounds. But Republican Representative Steven Holt of Denison considers it impractical for several reasons. The drugs to administer a lethal injection are hard to find and Holt said the cost of sentencing someone to spend the rest of their life in prison is far less than the court costs associated with appeals to a death sentence and the expense of maintaining a death row in the state’s prison system.
OTTUMWA — The Ottumwa Public Library is happy to announce that they will be offering two free computer classes.
The first, Thursday, February 23rd at 10:30 am, will be Computer Basics. It will teach the basic parts of the computer, how to minimize, restore, and close windows, and become more confident using a mouse.
The second class will be Thursday, March 2nd at 10:30 am and will be on Email Basics. It will teach how to compose and send an email, log into email without assistance, attach a file to email and organize your email.
“We are so excited to be able to offer these classes. We are utilizing laptops purchased with Legacy Foundation Bright Idea Grant funds and will be able to offer a quiet classroom setting for this instruction,” Sonja Ferrell, Ottumwa Public Library Director said. “So much of our society relies on basic computer and internet knowledge today and it is necessary that we help educate our community with those skills.”
Participants are not required to attend both classes. Space is limited so registration is required. Please call 641-682-7563 to sign up.
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