Audubon County officials have announced the candidates that submitted nomination papers to appear on the November 7th city election ballots.

In Gray Incumbent Mayor William Cramer is running unopposed while three people are running for 2 Council seats: Roy John Bolick, Incumbent Joan Cramer, and Jared Olson. Also Samuel Wendl is running unopposed to fill a Council vacancy term to 2019.

In Audubon 3 people are running for 3 Council seats. Incumbents Brad Hemmingsen and Jason Hocker are joined in the running by Nick Weihs.

Audubon voters will also be voting on Public Measure A which asks: Shall the following public measure be adopted? Summary:  To authorize a change in the use of the one percent (1%) Local Option Sales Tax in the City of Audubon  from 100% to Streets and Street repair to 100% for any lawful purpose as determined by the City Council of Audubon, IA. The use of the one percent (1%) local sales and services tax shall be changed in the City of Audubon, Iowa effective February 5, 2018.

In Exira Incumbent Mayor Mike Huegrich is running unopposed. Two people are running to fill 2 open Council seats, while two others are running to fill Council vacancies that term until 2019. Incumbent Dwight Jessen and Courtney Peppers are running for the two open seats. Appointed Incumbent Melissa Paulsen and Clark M. Borkowski are running to fill the vacancies.

In Kimballton Millette L. Shores is running unopposed for Mayor. Two people will be on the ballot to fill three open Council seats: Incumbent Tony Petersen and Chelsee Jacobsen.

In Brayton Neil C. Poldberg will challenge Incumbent Mayor Cally Christensen. Two people will be on the ballot to fill two open Councilperson seats, both are Incumbents David L. Hansen and Greg Gust.

Voters in Brayton will also be voting on Public Measure A which asks: “Shall an annual levy, the amount of which will not exceed a rate of one dollar fifty cents per thousand dollars of assessed value of the taxable property in the city of Brayton be authorized for providing additional moneys for police protection as provided in Iowa Code Section 368?”

JOHNSTON, Iowa –  September 25, 2017 – This month, Duane Aistrope, a Fremont County farmer, assumed the role as Iowa Corn Promotion Board President (ICPB).  Iowa corn farmers elect their peers to the ICPB in overseeing the investments of the Iowa corn checkoff. The Board’s primary activities include domestic and foreign market development, research into new and value-added corn uses, and education on the corn industry and helping to tell the story of Iowa’s farm families.

“The Promotion Board works year-round to continuously create opportunities for long-term corn grower profitability,” explained Aistrope. “Our efforts are focused on new uses, expanding ethanol usage domestically as well as internationally, and trade for corn in all forms.”

Aistrope, a graduate of Iowa Western Community College, has been farming for 37 years. In his current operation, he raises corn and soybeans, and operates a cow/calf operation. He and his wife, Roberta, have three children. Duane has served as Chair of the Exports and Grain Trade Committee and currently serves as the Innovation and sustainability leader for the US Grains Council Action Team.

“The Iowa Corn Promotion Board identified market development as one of its top priorities,” he stated. “As corn farmers continue to get more efficient at producing a bountiful crop, we need to have markets for all those piles of corn. We understand that to advance this industry we need to expand markets and persistently promote corn in all forms.”

Duane wants to promote the increased usage of corn-ethanol in Iowa and help to identify additional uses for our corn such as exports, bio plastics, and DDGS.

He currently is a member of the Fremont County Corn and Soybean Growers and Farm Bureau. He has been on the FSA County Committee for 27 years, a township trustee for 20 years and a 4-H leader for 21 years. Aistrope has served leadership positions in the Fremont County Farm Bureau including President and Vice-President. He has also served on the Fremont County Fair Board.

For more information about the Iowa Corn Promotion Board, its programs or the farmer-leaders who serve on its board, go to www.iowacorn.org.

The Creston Police Department reports two separate arrests this past Friday, September 22nd.

At 12:30pm Friday Officers arrested 38-year-old Demion Garrison on a Union County Warrant for Violation of Probation. He was booked in to the Union County Jail and held on $1,000 bond.

At 10:29pm Friday Creston Police arrested 32-year-old Cassandra Larkin on a Union County Warrant for Violation of Pretrial Release on the original charges of 4 counts of Controlled Substance Violation. She was taken to the Ringgold County Jail and held on $50,000 bond.

Also on Friday Creston police received a report from a resident that a 2004 Olsmobile Alero was stolen from a residence on North Oak Street. Estimated loss was $2,500.

Creston Police also received a report Saturday around 11:23am that a top load washer and dryer set was stolen from the back of a residence on South Elm Street sometime between 11:00pm Friday and 8:00am Saturday.  Loss was estimated at $100.

The Red Oak Police Department reports the arrest of a Red Oak man Sunday for Child Endangerment. At 3:45pm Officers arrested 27-year-old Ryan Lee Bohanan of Red Oak in the 2400 block of North 8th Street. Officers had determined that Bohanan acted in a manner that placed the minor victim’s physical and mental safety at substantial risk. Bohanan will be charged with Aggravated Child Endagerment. He was taken to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $2,000 cash bond. Montgomery County Sheriff’s Deputies and Iowa DHS assisted in the investigation.

A house fire in Panama early this (Monday) morning claimed the life of one person. The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office reports they were dispatched along with Panama Fire and Rescue to a house fire at 201 South 2nd Street in Panama at 2:38am. Found inside the residence was 87-year-old Norine Mahlberg who was pronounced dead at the scene. Portsmouth Fire and Rescue, Earling Fire and Rescue, Westphalia Fire and Rescue, and Medivac also responded to the scene.

The State Fire Marshall is continuing to investigate the cause of the fire.

w/Chris Parks.

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A Maryland congressman who is the first official Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 says his party must “start talking about what people really care about.” “Their jobs, the dignity of work, their pay and their opportunity for their children — that’s what people overwhelmingly care about. The Democratic Party has to be the party that stands for those things.” John Delaney has served three terms in the U.S. House, but is not seeking reelection in 2018. Instead, he’s visiting the states that host the first voting events in the 2020 presidential campaign and Delaney plans to visit Iowa twice a month over the next year. He was in Audubon Sunday afternoon and spoke by phone with Radio Iowa Sunday evening.

“The reason I entered this race so early is I think the Democratic Party has to have a very important conversation about our future and how we start winning elections,” Delaney says, “and I think I’m the person to, ultimately, lead that conversation, but really what I need to do is listen to people, make sure I’m focused on what they care about and give people an opportunity to get to know me.”

Delaney, who is 54 years old, is a former banker. He founded two companies and is worth about 90 million dollars according to the Associated Press. During his FIRST campaign for congress in 2012, Delaney promised voters he’d bring “the perspective of an entrepreneur to a gridlocked congress.” Delaney’s prescription for the Democratic Party in 2017? Figure out how to appeal to Americans who’ve been “left behind by the pace” of economic change.

“In the last election, we kind of created the wrong villain,” Delaney says. “The villain, they said, was globalization, but in reality it was government’s failure to respond to changes that were ultimately positive for the economy, but they weren’t positive for everyone and we watched it happen and we did nothing about it.” During his meeting with Democrats in Audubon on Sunday, Delaney didn’t mention Trump’s remarks about N-F-L players taking a knee during the National Anthem.

Delaney says Americans ARE looking for “civility” in their politics, but he says competence is the more pressing concern. “The Democratic Party has to be the party of good government,” Delaney says. “We need to be the party that actually gets government working again for the American people…They want to start believing in their government again because it’ll help them believe more in themselves.” Delaney was in Iowa last month and visited the Iowa State Fair.

Today (Monday) at 8 a.m., he’ll be at Duncan’s Cafe on Main Street in Council Bluffs to greet and talk with breakfast-hour customers.

(Radio Iowa)

A touring Midwestern rock band will play concerts in Underwood and two other Iowa high schools in the next week or so, shows that will be immediately followed by frank talks from the band’s frontman about financial literacy. Steve Gooding, co-founder, guitarist and singer in the band Gooding, says after the music ends, the lessons begin about debt, stocks and savings accounts.

“This is an organic thing that grew out of us just realizing some mistakes we made,” Gooding says. “I’ve got a mic and I’m lucky, I’d better use it. We’re trying to find common denominators to keep kids out of trouble later in life. We are rock-n-rollers, brother, we are not financial advisors. This is just something we realized maybe could make a little bit of a difference.” Gooding, a Wichita, Kansas native, says “the music helps the medicine go down” and most kids are receptive to hearing what he has to say about money.

“I tell them about not knowing what a credit score was until I screwed mine up,” Gooding says. “I tell them I knew more about geometry than how to balance a checkbook when I left high school. I have them raise their hands: Who wants to buy a car? Who wants to buy a house? Who wants to get married? Of all these things, I show them the stats on financial literacy being as important to achieving these things as anything else they’re going to learn in school.” While it appears some athletes and celebrities become wealthy overnight successes, Gooding says that’s just a myth he debunks with his concerts.

“We play rock-n-roll as wild and crazy as we can and we show them a little film, some of the people we’ve met in the music business, and then I come out and actually try to deconstruct that very same thing, by saying, ‘Look, I was a kid that thought some record deal was going to fix all my problems, but you have to go slow and steady,'” Gooding says. “If you’ve got a dollar in your pocket, you have more money than some of these famous people. They go up fast and they go down just as fast.”

The band Gooding is scheduled to play on Thursday (September 28th) at Underwood High School in Underwood, and next Tuesday (October 3rd) at both Norwalk High in Norwalk and Ballard High in Huxley in central Iowa. The tour is sponsored by the Iowa Insurance Division in partnership with the non-profit group, Funding the Future.

(Radio Iowa) related story links:

Program: fundingthefuturelive.org
Band: goodingmusic.com

A male juvenile is dead and two adults were seriously injured during a head-on collision late Sunday evening in Webster County.  The Iowa State Patrol reports a passenger in one of the vehicle, 12-year old Brady Ahlstrom, of Humbolt, died at the scene. The drivers of the vehicles, 40-year old Trisha Luthro, of Badger, and 39-year old Kevin Ahlstrom, of Humbolt, suffered incapacitating injuries. They were initially transported by rescue squad to the Humboldt Hospital, and soon transferred to Iowa Methodist Hospital. Each of the crash victims was wearing a seat belt.

The Patrol says the crash happened at around 7:50-p.m. on Highway 3, one-half mile east of Dakota City. It occurred as a 2007 Ford Edge driven by Trisha Luthro was traveling east in the westbound lane and a 2009 Buick LaCrosse driven by Kevin Ahlstrom was traveling west in its lane. The SUV’s collided at the crest of a hill.

The accident remains under investigation. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and Humboldt EMS assisted the Patrol at the scene.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – Officials of a city in western Iowa have agreed to spend more than $100,000 on a project to silence train horns that now frequently blare through downtown.  The Sioux City Journal reports that Sioux City Council voted on Sept. 18 to approve a contract with Twin Cities-based SRF Consulting Group Inc. to create a “quiet zone” at multiple BNSF Railway train crossings downtown. Quiet zones are areas which meet specific safety guidelines that allow trains to pass through a crossing without sounding their horns.

Mayor Bob Scott was the lone dissenting vote. He says he voted against the project because the contract was being given to an out-of-state company instead of a local business. The city created another quiet zone in the downtown area seven years ago.