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The Waukon Police Department wants the local community to be aware that there has been a report of counterfeit money that has surfaced in Waukon. The Waukon Chamber of Commerce received a report last week from a business in Waukon that received a counterfeit ten dollar bill.
The bill was confirmed to be counterfeit through use of a counterfeit indication pen. The Waukon Police Department suggests that the most effective way to detect counterfeit currency is with such a pen that reacts to the wood-based paper used by most counterfeiters in comparison to the fiber-based paper used by the United States Treasury.

Snow showers that powdered northeast Iowa Friday, December 18, such as what was captured in the above photo, may have had some area residents thinking of the possibility of the traditional white Christmas first popularized in song during the 1940s by Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby. Anywhere from a trace to nearly half an inch of snow was reported in various locations throughout Allamakee County that Friday, making for some difficult travel conditions during the day. The edging up of weekend temperatures, coupled with the arrival of light rain Sunday, December 20 into the first official day of winter, Monday, December 21, to start this week leading up to the Christmas holiday, erased all signs of Friday's snowfall, perhaps along with any hopes of this year featuring a white Christmas locally.

Because of, but also in spite of, the unseasonably mild early December weather, work has continued to progress on the Driftless Area Education and Visitor Center located just south of Lansing on the Columbus Property. Although the several inches of rain received the weekend of December 12-13 coupled with the lack of frozen ground has recently made for a rather muddy job site, the warmer than average temperatures for the first half of December have allowed for much of the structural foundation to begin to take shape, such as the pouring of concrete walls for the Center pictured above. Since the project started in November, the building site has been excavated to the bottom level of the structure, and footings and foundation walls have been nearly completed. Other work completed on the project includes the drilling of two wells for the building's geothermal system, although they await connection.

A total of 35 Cub Scouts from Pack 64 in Waukon collected toys at their December Pack meeting for the Allamakee Giving Tree, sponsored by Northeast Iowa Community Action Corporation (NEIACAC). NEIACAC is assisting 106 families during the holiday season this year and the donations from the Cub Scouts will help give those families toys as gifts or to play with during the holiday season. Pictured above at the donation presentation are, left to right, Letha Folsom of NEICAC, Cub Scouts Zach, Caden, Jackson and Ryan, and Susan Troendle of NEICAC. Submitted photo.

Maxwell Moore, son of Andy and Emily Moore of Waukon, decided he wanted to do something special for his fifth birthday recently celebrated. Instead of gifts for himself, he asked his friends to bring a new toy to be donated to Toys for Tots. He is pictured above at the Toys for Tots collection site at Fareway in Waukon donating all of the toys collected by his friends. Submitted photo.

by Bob Beach
and Jason Meyer

SafeWise, an independently-owned organization offering review and comparisons on information and products related to home security, released its 15 Safest Cities in Iowa Report for 2015 December 7, and the city of Waukon was ranked number one in that report based on criteria used by SafeWise to compile such rankings. To coordinate the report, SafeWise analysts considered the most recent Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime data on violent crimes and property crimes from the year 2013 to rank applicable cities in the state of Iowa which have a minimum population of 3,000 people.
Although local law enforcement would be most people's first thought when it comes to a city's safety ranking such as one conducted by SafeWise, Waukon Police Chief Phil Young and his crew of six additional officers are quick to give credit back to members of the community themselves.

by Jason Meyer

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In 1902 the ladies of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Waukon with the assistance of The Democrat newspaper in circulation at that time published a history of Waukon. The publication was used as a fundraiser for the church at that time.
This year, more than 100 years later, a committee from today's Methodist church decided to reprint an updated edition of that original history as a fundraiser, and copies are available to the public for purchase. An original copy of the 1902 publication was discovered in the collection of the late Lloyd and Marilyn Clark of Waukon. Two of their daughters, Dianne Clark Rissman and Carolyn Clark, both of whom were instrumental in the recent update and reprinting of the original history, think that the reprint is a way to honor the hard work done by those early church ladies and Democrat publisher E.F. Medary.