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Saturday, March 11, Democratic members of the Iowa House of Representatives will visit Waukon for a legislative listening post. Those Democratic Representatives will listen to local concerns regarding recent efforts to lower Iowa's minimum wage, close down and lay-off employees of Luster Heights Camp, underfund public schools, raise property taxes and close down women's health clinics.

The listening post will begin at 1 p.m. this Saturday at Robey Memorial Library, located at 401 First Avenue NW in Waukon. Saturday's listening post is part of a series of such events being conducted by Iowa House of Representative Democrats throughout Iowa.

"I hope Iowans will join us to share their concerns and learn what's really happening at the State Capitol this year," said Representative Mark Smith of Marshalltown, House Democratic Leader and District 71 Representative.
 

by Joe Moses

The Allamakee County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Monday, March 6 to address a full agenda of items including the Review of Property/Liability and Workers Compensation insurance policies, setting a public hearing date for a zoning district change request and the approval of manure management plan updates. Chairperson Larry Schellhammer was not in attendance and Chairperson Pro-Tem Dennis Koenig called the meeting to order.

The 9:40 a.m. agenda item, the Historic Preservation Commission Report by Marcia Rush, was removed from the agenda and will be rescheduled for a later Board meeting. There were no public comments and no members of the public in attendance.
Tax abatements for Craig Freilinger, Don and Dolores Topel and Mary Ann Bustamante were approved as presented. Manure Management Plan updates for Devin Humpal, West Ridge Ag and Gibbs Dairy were accepted and placed on file.

by Lissa Blake

The Northeast Iowa Community Action Corporation (NEICAC) Family Planning Clinic in Decorah will close its doors June 30 of this year. At a meeting Monday night, February 27, the NEICAC Board of Directors voted to close the Clinic when its contract with the Iowa Department of Public Health ends at this year's midpoint.

“The decision was very difficult for the Board,” said David Boss, NEICAC director of community outreach and development.

According to NEICAC Director Mary Ann Humpal, the program has lost over $90,000 per year for the past two years and is looking at losing that much again by the close of this fiscal year.

“We are jeopardizing other programming within the agency,” said Humpal.

Humpal said there are many factors that went into the Board’s decision to close the office, which serves around 600 customers in a seven-county area.

Additional awards distributed at Friday’s annual banquet can be found on Page 4A in this week’s print and e-edition of The Standard.

Pick up this week's print edition or subscribe to our e-edition by clicking here.
 

by Lissa Blake

The conditions for the 57th annual Yellow River bird count were perfect. That’s according to Larry Reis, the northeast Iowa naturalist who compiles the results each year.

Each year, the Yellow River bird count is among hundreds taking place across the nation. Data is compiled and submitted to the National Audubon Society.

The 2016 Yellow River bird count took place Tuesday, December 20. Eight area birders spent the day counting birds in a 15-mile radius spanning from north of Effigy Mounds to Waterville, Harpers Ferry, Wexford, Marquette and across the Mississippi River to Prairie du Chien, WI. Reis said December 20 was a sunny day that stayed around 30 degrees.

“We had eight observers, but we could always use more,” said Reis.

The December count spotted a total of 51 different species making up 2,912 individual birds. Highlights included two American black ducks, which were found along the Mississippi.

by Joe Moses

The Allamakee County Board of Supervisors met in a pair of regular sessions within this past week due to the President's Day holiday falling on the board's usual Monday meeting date February 20. Coverage of both the Tuesday, February 21 and Monday, February 27 regular meetings of the Board appears below.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21
The Allamakee County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Tuesday, February 21 due to the President's Day holiday Monday, February 20. The Supervisors addressed a full agenda of items including an insurance quote presentation by Upper Iowa Insurance Services, consideration of a bridge embargo and a public hearing for a Fiscal-Year 2017 budget amendment.

The road from smalltown rural Iowa to the Fortune 500® won't be found on any map or GPS unit, but Waukon High School 1981 graduate Robin Schoh may be a good one to ask directions from.

The former stand-out athlete for the Indians in her high school days, who may best be remembered locally for her athletic prowess that earned her All-Conference and All-State recognition in three different sports: basketball, softball and track, is now the co-founder of a steadily growing business that has been ranked among the business world elite on the Fortune 500® list compiled by Entrepreneur magazine. Making that prestigious list last year was only another step forward, however, as this year's list unveiled in January showed Schoh's 2003-founded Waxing The City body waxing company had zoomed from its initial #392 spot on that 2016 list to the even more elite top 100 at #89 for 2017.

The long-running television series "Finding Bigfoot" on the Animal Planet channel is scheduled to air an episode of that series this weekend that is reported to have been filmed in Yellow River State Forest in Allamakee County. The television series is described as "A team from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) tracks the legendary beast using infrared and night-vision cameras, as well as information from firsthand accounts of alleged encounters."

A northern Allamakee County landowner recently reviewed trail camera footage from last fall and made a surprising discovery. An animal known as a fisher (pictured in lower half of photo at right) was discovered in a trail camera photo and confirmed by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), a notable sighting since fishers have not been known to be in Iowa since the 1800s. This relative of the weasel is more common in the woodlands of Minnesota, but Furbearer Biologist Vince Evelsizer with the Iowa DNR out of Clear Lake has indicated that a southward trend has been recorded over the last five years for fishers in Minnesota, with a noticeable increase in numbers of the mammal in southeast Minnesota. Evelsizer believes the uneven terrain of northeast Iowa and southeast Minnesota, known as the Driftless Area, lends itself as an ideal habitat for fishers.

Although area thermometers and daytime weather conditions didn't offer much support of the name, the annual WinterFest celebration did take place in Lansing Saturday, February 18. Temperatures rising toward the 60-degree mark during the latter portion of this past week (confirmed by the LED thermometer reading pictured at right) allowed for WinterFest enthusiasts to take part in a variety of activities while donning some very "unFebruary-like" attire, such as the shorts and sandals sported by the youngsters pictured above. For additional WinterFest photos taken for The Standard by Jordyn Burroughs, see Page 5A of the print edition or e-edition. For additional spring-like weather in February... don't look too far ahead in the forecast.