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State of Iowa Auditor Rob Sand will be making stops in northeast Iowa this week as part of his 100 Town Hall Tour. Auditor Sand invites members of the community to attend these meetings and learn more about the State Auditor’s role, the Public Innovations and Efficiencies (PIE) program created by Auditor Sand in 2019, and the most recent investigations completed by his office.

Auditor Sand will be hosting an Allamakee County Townhall Meeting as part of that 100 Town tour this Thursday, September 15. The meeting will take place from 8:30-9:30 a.m. at the Allamakee County Freedom Rock location in the Waukon City Park, located at 1240 Rossville Road in Waukon.

Meetings to begin September 13 in Waukon

This past March, Veterans Memorial Hospital shared its intent to file a petition to invoke a public vote for a City to County conversion and received the Waukon City Council’s support. In July, the hospital turned in a petition with more than enough signatures to earn inclusion on the ballot for the November 8 General Election for voters to vote on this conversion. Veterans Memorial Hospital staff and board members will now visit each Allamakee County community in the next two months to hold meetings to present and discuss the needs and impacts of this City to County conversion.

by Julie Berg-Raymond

RAGBRAI 2022 is in the books - and Lansing, hosting the end-of-the-line “dip-site” for the third time (1977, 2017 and 2022), made the biggest profit from the event of any participating city this year.

Ian Zahren, Lansing RAGBRAI executive chair, recently announced that the organization generated $208,000 in total revenue (Main Street restaurants and bars made an additional $50,000) and recorded an after-expenses profit of $115,400. By way of context, the 2017 event in Lansing generated $102,855 in total revenue, and recorded a profit of $33,017, after expenses. These numbers, Zahren noted, reflect a doubled revenue, and a quadrupled profit from that 2017 venture.

Residents within the city limits of Harpers Ferry will be voting on Public Measure AM seeking approval of a seven-percent hotel/motel tax in a special election scheduled for Tuesday, September 13 in Harpers Ferry. The Harpers Ferry Community Center will be the lone polling location for the election, and polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The official language that will be on the special election ballot for Public Measure AM reads as follows:

“Shall the City of Harpers Ferry, Iowa, be authorized to impose a hotel and motel tax at the rate of seven percent (7%), effective January 1, 2023, with at least fifty percent (50%) of the revenues derived from the tax to be used for park and recreation programs and facilities for the City of Harpers Ferry?”

A simple majority of 50% of voters plus one more is required to pass the measure. The tax would then go into effect January 1 of the new year for a time period yet to be determined.

by Lissa Blake

A long-vacant property on Main Street in downtown Waukon is getting a fresh start thanks to a collaboration between the City of Waukon, State of Iowa and local business owners.

AJ Steakhouse, located in the building known previously as JCPenney or Tierney’s on the southwest corner of the stoplight intersection on Waukon’s Main Street, is set to open early in the month of September.

New building and business owners Arturo Barreda and Jose Velarde first opened Fiesta Vallarta in 2014 just a couple blocks east of their newest venture, and their busy Mexican restaurant has been a draw to downtown Waukon ever since.

A few years back, after the Waukon community lost both Mulligan’s and Gus and Tony’s to fires, the two restaurateurs started thinking about what they could do to fill that void. “We needed more restaurants and we thought the steakhouse would be a good idea,” said Arturo.

Initial planning meeting scheduled for Wednesday

Hazard risks can be natural or man-made, and cover a variety of things, such as storms and flooding, hazardous materials, infrastructure, terrorism, human disease and more. The public is invited to be involved in Allamakee County Hazard Mitigation Planning Committee (HMPC) meetings to identify hazard risks and discuss ways communities can prevent, or mitigate, these risks in the future.

Planning committee members require no previous experience to be involved. The planning process will provide the data, materials and questions necessary to engage stakeholders in thinking about hazard mitigation needs for their community.

Planning committee members will attend up to five meetings over the course of the coming year. The initial planning meeting will be held from 4-6 p.m. Wednesday, August 31 at Waukon City Hall, located at 101 Allamakee Street in Waukon.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is hosting an informational meeting on Chronic Wasting Disease Wednesday, August 31 at the Waukon Banquet Center from 6:30-7:30 p.m. The DNR invites everyone to attend who is interested in learning more about what Iowans can do to help slow the spread of the disease.

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a fatal disease that affects members of the deer family, including white-tailed deer in Iowa. The DNR began statewide surveillance efforts for the disease in 2002 when CWD was detected in wild deer in some of Iowa’s neighboring states. Since then, the DNR has maintained statewide surveillance efforts in order to monitor the spread of the disease in Iowa’s white-tailed deer population. Following the 2021-2022 hunting seasons, a total of 163 CWD-positive deer have been detected in 12 Iowa counties.
 

May 9 of this year, the Lansing/New Albin Police Department responded to a medical call of an elderly man unconscious and not breathing. When officers arrived on scene, it was determined that 83-year-old Daniel William Lundy was deceased, and a death investigation was initiated.

Wednesday, August 17, the Lansing/New Albin Police Department arrested 67-year-old Andrew Raymond Karvel of Lansing, who was then charged with Murder in the First Degree in connection to the May 9 incident. Karvel remains in the Allamakee County Jail where he is being held without bond.

The investigation remains active and no further information will be released by authorities at this time. The Lansing/New Albin Police Department is being assisted by the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Major Crimes Unit, Allamakee County Sheriff’s Office and Iowa Medical Examiner’s Office.

by Joe Moses

The two-story house located at 404 West Main Street in Waukon, near St. John’s Lutheran Church, has found a new home just a couple blocks away at 4 6th Street SW, where it begins the next chapter in its 100-plus year history. The home that previously housed several generations of the family of Agnes Anderson of Waukon was moved to that new location Wednesday, August 17, the lot adjacent to the former C-Mart property not far from its century-plus original location.

“Creativity takes courage.”
- Henri Matisse

“It’s a choice. You’ve got to choose.”
- Sandi Boyd

by Julie Berg-Raymond

“I love making pretty things – I call them ‘pretties,’” says Lansing artist Sandi Boyd.

Born in Utah and raised in Lansing, Boyd has been interested in art since she was a little girl. “We’ve got a lot of incredibly talented people in my family,” she says.