February 9, 2012

You are here: Home / 2008 / Archives for March 2008

Reinbeck company agrees to pay environmental penalty

March 31, 2008 By

A northeast Iowa company has agreed to a settlement over an air pollution lawsuit brought by the Attorney General’s office. Bob Brammer, a spokesman for the Attorney General, says the state filed the lawsuit against the Garrett Corporation which operates Delta Sports in Reinbeck.

Brammer says the facility makes targets for hunters and law enforcement, and then paints the targets. He says the suit says the company had various air pollution violations when painting those targets in 2006 and 2007. Brammer says the company agreed to a settlement that has two main provisions.

Brammer says they will pay a 45-thousand dollar civil penalty for pollution control violations and will also agree to commit no future violations. A Grundy County District Court judge issued the settlement order today (Monday).

Brammer says the matter was referred to the A-G’s office from the Environmental Protection Commission after the company had been subject to administrative orders and enforcement actions. He says they felt a high civil penalty was needed in this case. Part of the allegations said the company built new paint booths without obtaining the required construction permits. Brammer says the company has since been inspected and found to be in compliance. 

Filed Under: Business, Crime & Courts, Environment & Conservation

Southwest Iowa bed and breakfast offers spooks instead of beds

March 31, 2008 By

Darwin Linn owner of the infamous Villisca house If a southwest Iowa bed-and-breakfast charged $300 a night but didn’t offer guests beds or breakfast, if wouldn’t get much business — unless it’s rumored to be haunted.

Darwin Linn owns the small house in Villisca where eight people were murdered with an axe in 1912, a case that was never solved.

Linn says curious visitors have flocked there for years, though he stresses, it’s not a B-and-B. "No, you bring your sleeping bags. You bring your own food," he says. "We give you a tour of the house, a tour of the history of it. You actually lease it and we leave you and it’s yours for the night." Linn explains what makes people plunk down good money for such crude accommodations.

"I think for the thought that they might touch something of the unknown. They might get somebody to cross over and touch them or communicate with them or speak to them," Linn says, adding, "I can’t say it has (happened) or it hasn’t." Some people leave well before morning, and some don’t even make it an hour in the house.

Linn says he’s seen some very odd things in the century-old structure, but "I haven’t been kicked and my hair hasn’t been pulled and I haven’t been kissed but there’s a lot of people that have." He can’t logically explain everything he’s seen there, but he harkens back to the murder victims, which included six young children.

Bedroom where two of eight people were killed in Villisca "I’ve seen some pretty weird things and some of it is with the toys. They get moved around. There’s no reason for the toys to move one way or another. And real small children (on the tours), it just amazes me, small children that you can’t prompt to do things," Linn says, "the things they do to communicate with somebody that’s not there, like play with another child or raise the covers up on the bed and play peek-a-boo with somebody that’s not under the bed. It kinda’ makes the hair stand up on the back of my head."

Linn says the infamous axe murder house is already booked on weekends through August. Audio tour of the Villisca House below.
Photos:

Audio: Matt Kelley on a tour of the Villisca House with owner Darwin Linn. 9:30 MP3

Filed Under: Recreation & Entertainment

Twin brothers rescued from Mississippi River mishap

March 31, 2008 By

Twin brothers from Keokuk were rescued from the Mississippi River this afternoon after their fishing boat filled with water. Conditions on the river were rough early Monday afternoon when the incident happened.

Twins Terry and Gary Lovell, who are 65 years old, were throwing a fishing net from the bow of their commercial fishing vessel when a wave swamped the boat. The brothers quickly donned their life vests and were rescued by a boat from a nearby marina.

A Department of Natural Resources conservation officer says the incident should remind all boaters to be mindful of weight distribution when they’re on the water, especially when the water’s choppy. A D.N.R. safety expert says the twins made a lucky escape because oftentimes when an emergency occurs on the water, boaters don’t have time to put on their life jackets.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Politics & Government Tagged With:

Clinton camp still owed over $100,000 in Iowa on February 29

March 31, 2008 By

Campaign documents indicate Hillary Clinton’s campaign still owed over $100,000 to Iowa businesses, schools and individuals at the end of February. Of the four dozen outstanding bills Clinton listed as unpaid in Iowa a month ago, the largest was a $48,000 debt that’s been paid in the past month.

Some of the biggest expenses were for printing campaign materials. Ron Hoyt has worked at Carter Printing in Des Moines for 30 years and he says this was an Iowa Caucus campaign cycle unlike any other. "We were printing all kinds of things…the literature that they would hand out at their Iowa appearances — support cards, sign up cards…We were printing their position or policy statements….for some of the campaigns we even printed larger quantities of things like yard signs and so forth," he says.

While Clinton is all settled up with Hoyt’s firm, the Richardson campaign is still in arrears. "We don’t necessarily require payment from them in advance, but we do know how to get our money from them," Hoyt says. "…I have several candidates who have small balances under $3000 — not really a big thing in light of what everybody spent."

Some of the Iowa businesses or individuals who provided goods or services to the Clinton campaign say they received a check in the mail in the past week. Bill Clinton appeared in schools in Solon and Missouri Valley in late December and the two districts submitted bills totaling about $2800 for "event expenses" and both districts were paid last week.

The Clinton campaign had unpaid utility bills and over $2000 in unpaid garbage fees on February 29th — eight weeks after the Caucuses. Some firms refuse to reveal whether any customer’s bills are paid up, even bills publicly reported by a campaign.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Fallon strikes back at Boswell charges

March 31, 2008 By

Ed Fallon (file photo) Democratic congressional candidate Ed Fallon held a news conference this morning to strike back at allegations that the political consulting business he created in 2006 is merely a "shadow organization" to gather an income for Fallon.

Fallon’s congressional campaign manager also manages his consulting firm and Fallon said he has no immediate intention of making public the names of the individuals who’ve written checks to the firm.  

"When we set it up we never expected to have to, you know, tell the world who was donating. I have a feeling that most people wouldn’t care, but we haven’t asked them and I don’t have time to go back and do that to all the folks who’ve donated right now," Fallon said. "If, at some point, that’s something that the supporters of that initiative want to go public with, that’s fine, but I can’t do that without talking with them about it."

Fallon is challenging Congressman Leonard Boswell is the June primary. Boswell campaign spokesman Mark Daley says Fallon "talks about clean elections," but Daley is accusing Fallon of running a "shadow organization" to get around laws requiring disclosure of donors to nonprofit groups.

Fallon told reporters he opted for a partnership rather than a nonprofit in order to be free to address a "much broader range" of political issues. "The nice thing about a nonprofit is you can accept tax-deductible donations," Fallon said, "but the bad thing about a nonprofit is it really, really ties your hands in terms of the paperwork you’ve got to do, the board and bylaw and article structure you’ve got to put in place and the limitations to which you can really engage in anything relevant to politics, even something as basic as advocacy."

Fallon, in turn, accuses the Boswell campaign of attacking his political work because it’s his strength and Boswell’s weakness. "I think one mistake that politicians sometimes make is they get attacked and they think, ‘Well, that’s silly. I’ll just let that go. Nobody believes that’ and that happened to me during the campaign for governor. I was attacked in Iowa City on some of my strengths and I didn’t respond because they were so absurd and I wound up losing Johnson County because of that," Fallon said. "I’m not going to let that happen again."

Fallon said he held a news conference at his Des Moines campaign headquarters to make his points clearly and publicly. "I think that Congressman Boswell is trying to discredit me on something that is groundless, but again, he’s coming at me on my strength and his weakness — the same thing that Republicans did to John Kerry," Fallon told reporters, citing the G.O.P. attacks which questioned Kerry’s war record when Kerry faced off against President Bush in 2004.

Fallon and Boswell are both from Des Moines and both are seeking to represent Iowa’s third district in congress in 2009 and 2010.

Click on the audio link below to listen to Fallon’s news conference.

AUDIO: Fallon news conference (mp3 runs 17 min)

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Movie "Haunting Villisca" opens in city of the crime

March 31, 2008 By

Villisca House The world premiere of the movie “Haunting Villisca” was held over the weekend in the same southwest Iowa town where eight people were murdered nearly a century ago.

The movie transposes a fictional modern storyline of a man coming to grips with his wife’s suicide over re-creations of the 1912 ax murders of two adults and six children in the small house.

The film also includes reenactments of parts of the trial, shot in the same Montgomery County courtroom where the real thing took place, using transcripts. The suspect was acquitted and the murders remain unsolved. Most movie-goers who saw the movie’s debut gave positive reviews.

A young woman says: “I’m actually not even from around here so I just came to watch the movie. I thought it was really interesting. A little scary but I’m into that kinda’ scary stuff.” An older man says, “It’ll take me a little while to figure out whether I liked this thing or not.” This man didn’t quite know what to expect but seemed satisfied with the result.

He says: “It was a little different than what I was anticipating. I was thinking it would be more a documentary style but it really had a lot of parts in it that were going back and forth. Pretty provocative, I guess.”

Villisca theatre Producers of the film are still working to market it to a wider audience. Many people who saw the movie, which played in Villisca’s downtown theater on Saturday and Sunday, also opted for a tour of the small white house a few blocks away.

This Fort Dodge man took the tour but decided there was no way he’d be spending the night in the structure, which is also an option — for a price.

He says, “It’s just a little eerie because it’s old and nothing’s changed. A little scary. I think my wife and kids would be freaked if they stayed the night.” Many people do want that experience though, and pay $300 a night to see for themselves if anything otherworldly remains following what’s billed as the world’s largest unsolved ax murder. For more information on the film, visit the Haunting Villisca website .

Audio: Radio Iowa’s Matt Kelley reports :42 MP3

Filed Under: Recreation & Entertainment

USDA estimate shows bean acres up, corn acres down

March 31, 2008 By

The U.S. Ag Department is estimating that corn acres nationwide will drop by about eight million this spring, with the corn acres in Iowa down one-million. Soybean acres are expected to be up over 11-million nationwide — including a one-million acre increase in Iowa. Iowa Corngrowers Association president Tim Recker of Arlington, isn’t surprised the number of corn acres could be down.

Recker says the estimate is probably what is expected based on the commodity markets. He says the market is giving farmers the signal that it is time to plant corn. The demand for both corn and soybeans has been high — as have the prices, often driving the decisions farmers make. Recker says farmers should see how the latest estimates impact the commodity markets before making any final decision.

He says farmers may want to "let the market work for a couple of days until it gets direction." Recker says the market right now appears to be bullish on corn and somewhat neutral on soybeans. Recker says while the estimate shows a drop in acres this year, last year showed that can change between now and actual planting.

Recker says the planting intentions last year came out at 90-million acres and 93-million were actually planted. He says there could still be a chance that would happen this year, and he says weather and the cost of inputs will have a big role. Recker farms 1,500 acres of row crops, and says he’ll look at all the factors in determining how many acres he’ll put in corn.

Recker says he’ll look at the availability of inputs such as seed and fertilizer before making his final decision. The amount of corn and soybeans planted could have an impact on those outside of agriculture, as the availability and cost of commodities has an impact on food prices. 

Filed Under: Agriculture Tagged With:
« Older Posts