News

By Elizabeth Rhodes

The Wellman council Monday discussed how to process resumes and interview candidates for the new Deputy Clerk position, noting it could look over resumes, but a smaller committee including City Administrator Mark Baker, City Clerk Donna Wade, Mayor Ryan Miller, and one council member would be present to interview the four to five finalists.

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By Mary Zielinski

Although the final Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) floodplain mapping may not be done until April, it already is impacting the Kalona real estate market.

City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh Monday told the council that right now 47 percent of homes on the market within the city are in Zone A, the firm floodplain designation that will bring with it mandatory floodplain insurance for any owner who has a federally backed mortgage. The market listing for the nine homes is $1,054,700; total market listings within the city limits is $1,984,000.

Although Kalona has not yet passed a floodplain ordinance, which would give property owners access to the Federal Flood Plain Insurance Program (FPIP), the ordinance likely will be enacted next year.

Initial premiums for the federal insurance are low, but within about two years increases heavily.  And while a property owner with no mortgage is not required to have the insurance, lack of it likely would impact the property sale, officials have said.

Read the entire story in the Dec. 8 issue of the Wellman Advance

The Washington County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved the third reading and passage of the ordinance establishing a Local Option Sales and Services Tax (LOSST).  County voters approved the measure by a wide margin in the November 8 elections and with the exception of Riverside and Brighton, there is no sunset clause in the municipalities. LOSST was first approved in the county in 2002 with Washington (city), Kalona and Coppock never setting a time limit.

Read the entire story in the Dec. 8 issue of the Wellman Advance

By Gloria Williams

Alivia Fox didn’t win anything in the recent Teen Miss Iowa pageant held in Newton October 16-17, but for her that was not the point.

Alivia Fox

“I went into it with the attitude that I’m not here to win, I’m here because I know it’s fun,” says the 16- year-old junior at Mid-Prairie. “I’m here for the experience.” This was the second time Fox entered a pageant. Last year she competed in the National American Miss, which had more girls competing and gave her some experience, though not all of it was good. “This one I thought was way more organized,” says Fox. “You had enough time to change without being rushed.” During the first pageant, the hook that kept the zipper up on her strapless dress broke.

Read the entire story in the current issue of the Wellman Advance

During its meeting November 16 at the Riverside Casino, the Washington County Riverboat Foundation (WCRF) awarded a total of $653,837 to 34 of the 80 applicants with slightly more than 50 percent going to area schools.  The amount, $327,942, in 16 grants went to Highland, Keota, Mid-Prairie, Washington, Columbus  and St. James schools for everything from musical instruments to football and track lighting.

Among the 18 non-school awards was $70,000 to the city of Riverside for the splash pad and  $7,750 to the Riverside Ball Association for a backstop replacement, both of which will benefit youth.  Another youth involving grant, awarded to Main Street Washington, is $2,000 to aid with Youth Art Show Exhibits and Displays.  The largest single grant, $80,000 went to the Highland School District for new football/track lighting at the high school, and the grant for the splash pad in Riverside was the second highest.

St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Wellman is again sponsoring a  Christmas Tour of Homes Sunday, December 11 from 4 – 7:30 p.m.  Four homes in Wellman and St. Mary’s Rectory in Riverside are part of the three and a half hour tour.

The proceeds will benefit the youth programs of the cluster parishes of Wellman, Holy Trinity Church at Richmond and St. Mary’s, Riverside.  Tickets are $6 for the entire tour and can be purchased at any of the homes that afternoon. Youth group members will be at each home to welcome guests.

Homes included in the tour are:

• Randy and Vicki Erwin, 1910 Ginkgo Ave (five miles south of Wellman)

• Shannon and Donna McCain, 716 14th Street in Wellman (north of the water tower)

• Doug and Leslie Slaubaugh, 106 Fairview in Wellman (north of the golf course)

• Phyllis Martin, 502 11th Street, Wellman (west of St. Joseph’s Church).

• St. Mary’s Rectory, 51 St. Mary’s Street, Riverside.

By Elizabeth Rhodes

Monday, November 21, the Wellman City Council heard from City Administrator Mark Baker, who addressed the issue of providing funding for residents to complete individual storm water repair projects. “The city has in the past funded projects on private property to help landowners with drainage issues—the city has established a precedent of doing that,” said Baker. Baker continued by saying, “Typically problems are to be handled by landowners.”

“The city should, however, be involved in drainage problems comprehensively,” added Baker, “I don’t see that (funding private projects) as what the storm water utility was set up to do. I would propose it’s much more cost-effective, to have a city study that area and to determine what the solution would be.”

Baker proposed that with the storm water utility, the city “do a more comprehensive analysis versus tile to individual properties—look at the larger scale problem.”

See the Nov. 24 edition of The Advance for the complete story.

By Mary Zielinski

Although not unknown on its streets right now, golf carts and their related utility trail vehicles could be a familiar sight in Kalona.  Monday, the city council okayed going ahead with an amendment to the city ordinances providing for allowing golf carts on city streets, provided operators have a city-issued permit.  The ordinance likely will be passed in December.

The ordinance, largely based on a similar one in North Liberty, calls for a $25 annual permit fee, sets a speed limit of 25 mph for the vehicles and a initial fine of $75 for a first violation and $100 for any subsequent ones.

All operators of any of the vehicles must have a  valid driver’s license and be at least 17-years-old.  The ordinance also requires that the vehicles have headlights and taillights; however, times of operation on the streets is limited to the hours between sunrise and sunset.

By Mary Zielinski

Washington County Auditor Bill Fredrick submitted his resignation, effective in mid-January, to the Washington County Board of Supervisors.  The resignation is the second within a week for the county; last week Dave Patterson, the county engineer, announced his effective January 13.

Fredrick said he was essentially retiring and might extend his departure until the end of January, depending on what the board wants.  If he had remained, his position would have been up for election in November 2012.

“This way the board can have an interim auditor,” he said, “someone who may then want to run for election.”  It also will provide sufficient time for any candidates to consider the post, he noted.

The board also learned of another resignation, that of Jennifer Bennett from the Washington County Environmental Health office.

Arranged by Deb Seward and Kathy Duwa, the local Quilts of Valor training session saw four quilts done for the national organization who provides hand sewn quilt to wounded veterans.
“The goal is to make a quilt for every veteran,” said Duwa, noting they first are going to injured veterans, “now for those who received purple hearts.”
For the session in the church hall of the Asbury United Methodist Church in Wellman, 18 showed up to either learn or teach how to make the quilts.  Among them were six members of the local 4-H club and some experienced quilters.
One of the most enthusiastic was Brittany Megan Jones whose completed top features patriotic red, white and blue squares framing a large central panel with an American eagle.
Part of the session included a large printed American flag panel on which all the quilters will sign their names.  When it is completed, the quilt is to be presented to a local World War II veterans who, yes, was wounded.
Although he national QOV site noted 1,707 quilts were made in September, Duwa explained that “right now we are 712 quilts short per day” to provide one for each veteran.
Each of the finished quilts will be presented in a matching pillowcase.

Foreign exchange students Amany Wahba, foreground, of Egypt and Nikolina Sevcenko, seated, of Montenegro gave presentations to the Mid-Prairie Board of Education Monday. Both are in the United States as part of the World Link Foreign Exchange Student program of which Sherry Nisly is coordinator.

By Mary Zielinski

Mid-Prairie and the other schools in the Cedar Valley Conference (CVC) will be looking at considerably more travel time if the CVC is joined by Comanche (108 miles away) and Northeast (121 miles).  The change is contemplated by the Iowa Department of Education who set a mediation meeting for November 15 in Monticello.

“We never received notice of the meeting,” Superintendent Mark Schneider told the Mid-Prairie Board Monday.  However, Mid-Prairie’s Activities Director Steve Holan and High School Principal Gerry Beeler were to attend the meeting.

Schneider said that there are basically three steps to the realignment: the mediation meeting, recommendations and then a hearing regarding those recommendations.

Regina Junior-Senior High School in Iowa City and a CVC member already has raised concerns and said it believes “…our conference should be allowed to maintain its integrity.”  The Mid-Prairie also voiced concerns at its meeting not only about the added travel costs but also possible limitation on teams getting to play as well as an impact on academic classes.  The latter reflects having coaches who also are teachers and the greater distance means earlier departure times and the use of substitute teachers to fill in, noted the Regina Principal David E. Krummel in his letter to the DE.  The CVC members have taken a standing opposing any change in the conference.

Th CVC was formed after the dissolution of the Eastern Iowa Hawkeye Conference in 2008 and also to keep a fairly close geographic region for the teams.  Currently, the CVC consists of Mid-Prairie, Durant, North Cedar, Tipton, Regina a, West Branch, West Liberty and Wilton.  CVC adjoins the Tri-Rivers Conference with ten teams and the Big East Conference with nine.  Indications are that Tri-Rivers and Big East have been discussing forming a possible new super-conference.

In other business, the board:

•heard brief presentations from foreign exchange students Nikolina Sevcenko of Montenegro and Amany Wahba of Egypt, both part of the World Link Foreign Exchange Student program whose local representative is Sherry Nislh;

•learned that the November 28 meeting in Keota will be the superintendent evaluation and mainly a closed session;

•discussed briefly the board policy regarding community use of school district buildings, especially on Sundays.  However, the Sunday is never for a school sponsored activity, noted Schneider.  The non school groups assume all responsibility for custodian services, he said.  The board did not move to make an changes in the existing policy;

•accepted the bus bid of $85,149 each for two buses from School Bus Sales of Waterloo, but declined the trade-in of $875 for two buses with the district handling the sale.  The lowest total bid from Hoglund Bus was disallowed because it came in 27 minutes after deadline.  Hoglund’s per unit cost was $85,968, but offered a total of $11,000 in trade-in;

•learned that the district’s certified enrollment as of October 3 is 1,178; however, there are 152 students opened enrolled into the district for its Home School Assistance Program and another 131 K-12 full-time open enrolled students which this year has brought the district $1,003,901 in funding for 2011-12 comapred to $844,435 in 2010-11; and

•held a work session to discuss options for the Central Office project that likely will result in a new building of some kind.  The board discussed hiring an engineering/design consult to review options and costs.  Action probably will be gtaken at the December 12 meeting.

Washington County Communications Center personnel are getting into the Christmas spirit again with the eighth year of the “Everyone’s an Elf” project.

Employees will be donating toys and raising money to buy gifts for needy families this Christmas with their annual bake sale and blue jean Fridays. The previous seven year’s responses have been tremendous and we hope to sponsor five or more families this year.

Families will provide information about the children and their wish list for Santa Claus. “Elves” at the safety center will be shopping and wrapping from now until December 22 getting ready for delivery. Volunteers have once again stepped up to help Santa and deliver the presents and packages before Christmas Eve.

The Elf Project has been so successful that we have also started delivering gift baskets to shut ins and elderly persons identified as having no family this holiday season.

Anyone seeking more information about the project or with an interest in donating to the “Elf” project please contact Teresa Todd or Cara Sorrells at 653-2107, 800-TIPS-492 or feel free to email ttodd@wps.co.washington.ia.us or csorrells@wps.co.washington.ia.us.