Community News

by Joe Moses

The Waukon City Council met via Zoom web conference in regular session Monday, May 4 to address a variety of matters including discussion of hiring a new City Attorney, the acquisition of property at 7 Spring Avenue and proposed street projects for additional chip seal work.

Under Department Reports, Waukon Police Chief Paul Wagner discussed a grant that is intended to replace the Special Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP) grant which has supplied $4,200 in funding. He indicated that the new grant and program will provide $8,000 in funding for the department. Wagner also discussed bids received for the purchase of a new police department vehicle including a Dodge Durango from Torkelson Motors of Waukon at a bid price of $28,562.00 - with that purchase previously approved by the council to be taken out of next fiscal-year’s budget, and a Chevy Tahoe from RW Pladsen of Waukon at a bid price of $34,646.49.

AVEKA Group, Inc., a contract manufacturing and research and development company based out of Woodbury, MN, has recently started construction on a large-scale expansion to its AVEKA Nutra Processing (ANP) facility in Waukon. Originally started in 2011, the Waukon plant specializes in processing food, beverage and nutraceutical products for AVEKA’s wide range of clients.

Five facilities and over 25 years of operation after its initial inception, AVEKA was again feeling the strain of increased demand for its specialty milling, drying, blending and classifying services. One particular service that was seeing an especially high area of growth was large scale spray drying. Having nearly reached its maximum spray drying capacity, the company knew it needed to continue to expand its production capacity - and that meant expanding one of its facilities as well.

Plexiglass safety barriers to be installed at County Treasurer’s Office

by Joe Moses

The Allamakee County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Monday, April 27 to discuss a variety of matters including a plat approval, the Quarterly Report from Allamakee County Environmental Health and several COVID-19 related items. Board Chairperson Larry Schellhammer and Supervisor Dennis Koenig were present in the Supervisors Boardroom at the Allamakee County Courthouse with Supervisor Dan Byrnes attending via Zoom web-conferencing.

During Public Comment, resident Jack Knight briefly discussed the impact of COVID-19 on the county’s business community and the use of medical masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, making a comparison to the effect seen in urban areas.

With local long-term care facilities implementing visitor restrictions during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the interest of the health and safety of residents and staff, the family of Nick and Lana Dahlstrom of rural New Albin paraded some unique visitors around outside the windows of Good Samaritan Society-Waukon for residents and staff to enjoy in an effort to help alleviate some of the downside of the current unique visiting situation.

“We have been sharing photos with the residents through their website, https://www.good-sam.com/locations/waukon/send-a-note, to help the residents feel they are not alone or forgotten during this time,” Lana Dahlstrom shared. “It may be hard for them to understand or cope with why family is not visiting, and we wanted to do something to brighten their day.”

The State of Iowa has released an online dashboard on https://coronavirus.iowa.gov/ that will be updated daily to include comprehensive tracking of COVID-19 in Iowa. The dashboard includes cases, deaths and tests conducted in each county. The State is now providing demographic information that was not previously provided as well as Iowa’s epidemiological curve.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION RESOURCES

https://www.testiowa.com/
Test Iowa is an initiative to expand testing capacity to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Iowa.

First Baptist Church of Waukon and Center Baptist Church of Lansing hosted their first drive-in service Easter Sunday, April 12. A total of 48 vehicles were present at the First Baptist Church parking lot in southeast Waukon (pictured below), and the service was live streamed on the First Baptist Church public Facebook page and YouTube channel. The service was broadcast live over a radio transmitter and radio frequency of 91.5 FM. WW Homestead Dairy of Waukon is to be thanked for the loan of the radio transmitter to make it possible for individuals attending to hear the service from their vehicle radios.

by Joe Moses

The Allamakee County Board of Supervisors met in regular session Monday, April 20 to address a full agenda of items including discussion of vacating a segment of Valley View Drive, a County Public Health funding request and several other COVID-19-related matters. Board Chairperson Larry Schellhammer and Supervisor Dennis Koenig were in attendance at the boardroom with Supervisor Dan Byrnes attending the meeting via Zoom web conferencing from off-site.

During Public Comment, Jack Knight discussed the request by the Black Hawk County Supervisors to have Tyson Foods temporarily close its Waterloo facility to prevent further spread of the COVID-19 virus. Knight further inquired at what point the Allamakee County Supervisors would need to step in if a similar situation were to occur at Postville’s Agristar meat processing plant.

Allamakee County Auditor Denise Beyer encourages everyone to vote by mail for the June 2 Primary. For the health of voters and the poll workers, and to help stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus, voting by mail is being strongly encouraged.
Voters can have a ballot mailed to them in one of several different ways:

The Allamakee Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) recently hired Eric Novey to take over the Project Coordinator position that Sara Berges previously held before she moved to a position with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Novey will be managing the CIG and RCPP projects.
CIG stands for Conservation Innovation Grant and will be focusing on conducting cover crop interseeding trials in growing corn. RCPP stands for Regional Conservation Partnership Program and focuses on adding small grains to rotations and implementing cover crops on fields that have manure application.

Novey grew up in Prairie du Chien, WI and has family in the Lansing and Prairie du Chien areas. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville with a Bachelor of Science degree in Soil and Crop Science. Prior to graduation he was a Natural Resources Manager intern at The Galena Territory in Galena, IL.

The Plaza project at the stoplight intersection in downtown Waukon will be moving forward, with construction scheduled to begin this week, depending upon weather. Pictured above is the frame of the LED sign, owned by Waukon Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) and in place for several years at that downtown location, that was recently removed to accommodate the Plaza project and is expected to be reinstalled on the WEDC property in the 100 block of West Main Street sometime in the future. A steel and plexiglass sculpture art piece entitled “Crossroads” by artist Cara Briggs Farmer will be placed at the former LED sign location as part of the Plaza project.