Economy

2010 census: Step up and be counted, officials urge (03/11/10)
Participating in the 2010 U.S. Census could save thousands of dollars, services and programs -- when numbers of people matter. Local and state officials are asking residents to be diligent in filling out census forms and mailing them back by the April 1 deadline so an accurate population count can be obtained...

Merrill industry is model for Iowa's future, Judge says (03/09/10)
If Iowa is going to recover from the recession that has plagued the nation, recovery is going to come from the ground up. That's what Lt. Gov. Patty Judge said Monday during a visit to the Plymouth Oil, a food-grade corn oil plant just north of Merrill...

Branstad says it's time to clean house, Iowa (02/19/10)
Former Gov. Terry Branstad is OK with ice cream for breakfast, but he's not OK with Iowa's government the way it is now. That's what he told the crowd at the Blue Bunny Ice Cream Parlor in Le Mars Thursday morning on a campaign stop for the 2010 governor's race...

Merrill residents apprehensive on proposed Kissinger closure (02/18/10)
Final decision time is nearing on the question of whether to close Kissinger Elementary School in Merrill. The Le Mars Community Schools Board is holding a special meeting 7 p.m. tonight (Thursday) for public input and comments regarding proposed budget cuts, which include shuttering the Merrill elementary...

Public employee bargaining: The reasons behind the raises (02/12/10)
(Editor's note: This story is the second of two stories taking a closer look at public employees' bargaining.) Le Mars City Employees Bargaining Unit: Pay freeze for six months, 3 percent raise starting in January 2011. Plymouth County Secondary Roads Bargaining Unit: 3 percent raise for each year of a three-year contract...

Steve King says time to stop spending (02/08/10)
U.S. Rep. Steve King thinks the biggest problem in government right now is overspending. He also doesn't believe President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan is working as it was set out to do. Neither does he favor a government-run national health care program...

TIF: a powerful tool being overused? (02/05/10)
Out of all 99 Iowa counties, Plymouth County is ranked second for using Tax Increment Financing (TIF). About 15.2 percent of the county's taxable valuation is in TIF, according to the Iowa State Association of Counties. TIF is a taxing tool different than regular taxes, according to Plymouth County Auditor Stacey Feldman...

Sheriff's bargaining unit employees negotiate 6 percent raise (02/03/10)
The Plymouth County Supervisors signed 2010-2013 contracts with the sheriff and secondary road bargaining units Tuesday. After five months of negotiation and a four-hour mediation session in late December, 30 employees within the sheriff bargaining unit will receive a 6 percent salary increase in 2010 as part of the three-year contract...

Job training program revision, could limit local businesses (01/28/10)
One-half million dollars for Plymouth County business could be at stake as the State of Iowa discusses adjustments in funding to the Iowa Industrial New Jobs Training Program. Plymouth County businesses that received job training funding in 2009 were Plymouth Energy - $250,612, Plymouth Oil - $153,000, Wells Dairy - $25,000 and Bodeans Baking Company - $63,403...

A second stimulus could help local roads (01/25/10)
If there is a second federal stimulus, Plymouth County and Le Mars are lined up for a piece of the pie. Local planners found out last Thursday that, should the U.S. government approve a second stimulus bill, the Plymouth County roads department may receive $900,000 and the City of Le Mars $450,000 for road projects...

Rewind 2009: The worst of times and the best of times (12/31/09)

Budget time: Money sought for park ranger, emergency management, WIC (12/31/09)
County conservation, emergency management and Mid-Sioux Opportunities' directors made 2010-11 budgets requests Tuesday. The Plymouth County Supervisors did not make any decisions stating, instead, they will discuss all department's requests next week when they begin digging into budget preparation...

The stimulus dollars and you: Have you been touched by recovery money? (12/10/09)
More than $8 million worth of federal stimulus dollars has been quietly sliding through the IV of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and into Plymouth County's veins. That injection meant some schools could keep a teacher one more year. It meant replacing a worn bridge and repaving some roads. It meant some families will have money to weatherize their homes...

LCS teachers seek 3% package increase (12/08/09)

When life was simple: Fitzgerald recalls pony carts and hand-me-downs (12/03/09)
Editors Note: This story is the first in a weekly series looking back at life decades ago and remembering a time when people's lifestyle was very different than today. Was life simpler when $1 bought four gallons of gas or during the Great Depression when it cost less to use corn as fuel than sell it or when children played baseball instead of computer games?...

BoDeans expands production, adds more than 50 jobs (11/23/09)
A Le Mars ice cream cone and wafer baking company is upping production with a $12 million investment and adding close to 60 new jobs. BoDeans Baking Company is in the process of expanding both it's cone and wafer production at its facilities in the Le Mars industrial park, according to co-owner Dean Jacobson...

Analysis back on Le Mars' downtown: What's hot and what's not (11/19/09)
Editor's note: This story is the first in a pair of stories looking deeper at a recent downtown market analysis led by the Main Street Iowa program. Sometimes the familiar is too close to our face to see it clearly. Results are in on a survey and analysis of downtown Le Mars that aimed to give fresh perspective about its strengths and weaknesses -- and how to use that information to improve...

New ruling gives county green light on annex building (10/23/09)
The Le Mars Board of Zoning Adjustment reversed its earlier decision Thursday and approved variances allowing the county to move forward with plans to construct a courthouse annex building. Zoning board members voted 3-0 to approve a conditional use permit to build in a residential district and within 17 feet 9 inches off Fourth Avenue Southeast instead of 25 feet...

Boosting employee morale when dollars aren't there (09/25/09)
In the past year, more than 70 percent of employers laid off employees or restructured their organization. About 60 percent of employees say they're not getting bonuses this year. And about 50 percent of workers saw negative effects from pay and benefit changes...

Pheasants' habitat dwindles by millions of acres each year (09/18/09)
Hunters may face a challenge this season -- the pheasant population is on a downward spiral in Plymouth County and throughout Iowa. Last year Iowa had 100,000 hunters and 383,000 birds, which is four birds per person in the field. Other years there have been 1.5 million pheasants, said John Linquist, Pheasants Forever regional representative. "From the early 2000s to now there has been a steady decline because of weather and habitat," Linquist said. The cold, damp spring this year affected pheasants' nesting habits, said Mike Slota, Pheasants Forever chairman for Plymouth County youth programs. "The weather has to be somewhat warm to produce the insects for the chicks when they're hatched," Slota said. "The hens can't keep the chicks adequately warm and they just die from exposure." The loss of habitat also affects pheasants' nesting because hens have less area to hide from predators, Slota said. Pheasant habitats, which usually require 5 to 10 acres, are areas with a mixture of tall and short grasses and flowering plants that attract insects, Slota said. A major reason that habitat is dwindling is that millions of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acres are going away each year, Linquist said. Last year alone 1.1 million CRP acres expired, according to www.pheasantsforever.org. With the price of grain, farmers are finding they can make more money planting their land than putting it into CRP acres, Slota said. "With this economy you can't blame any farmer for squeezing every dollar out of the ground they can," Slota said. "Their job is to produce grain and make money off the ground. We understand that." Farmers began enrolling their qualified land into CRPs to be planted into habitats 10 to 15 years ago and receiving federal compensation, Linquist said. "A lot of people's acres are expiring and there are no new signups," he said. Another 3.8 million CRP acres will expire this fall and 4.4 million acres next September for a total of 21 million acres gone from the program by the end of 2012 without a new signup. The USDA does not have a signup scheduled, according to the Pheasants Forever website. "It's hard to maintain a bird population when we're constantly taking conservation acres out of play," Linquist said. Pheasants Forever hopes to turn that around with its program, Reload Iowa. The intent of Reload Iowa is to establish 1 million acres of new habitat on Iowa landscape. That means $11.5 million will need to be raised and 50 employees hired to go door-to-door to work with landowners to create the habitat, Linquist said. "That program is going to have to pay enough money out to entice the farmer to want to do this," Slota said. "The farmer has to look at the bottom line." There are also national programs like Conservation Practice 38 or State Acres For wildlife Enhancement (SAFE) working to help conserve and create new habitat. SAFE started last year with 200,000 CRP acres that were divided among states. "We had 27,700 acres," Linquist said. "All of those acres have been used up and all within a year." The loss of habitat and dwindling pheasant population in Plymouth County and throughout the state has a trickle-down effect on economy and recreation, Linquist said. "When the population of the birds down so does the population of the hunters," he said. That means less dollars spent shopping, eating and staying locally by nonresident hunters. Fewer hunters also leads to a loss of revenue on licenses, which means less money to help support county and state parks, Linquist said. "That's what buys the land and sees to the upkeep," he said. "We're hurting ourselves by people not going out and hunting." A declining pheasant and hunter population is also detrimental for the next generation of would-be hunters, but Slota's optimistic Reload Iowa and similar programs will turn the numbers around. "I hope we start seeing an increase in the next couple of years," Slota said. "I would love to see it start going back the other way and hopefully we are doing the right things to make it start going the other way."

Iowa's employment recovery may lag (09/16/09)
While the unemployment rate in Plymouth County and Iowa are staying well below the national level -- 9.7 percent for August -- numbers aren't improving much. That's according to Kerry Koonce, spokeswoman for the Iowa Workforce Development. Iowa's economy, she said, is slower to go into recession and slower coming out of it...

Le Mars native's camera work hits Fox news (09/04/09)
How many of us can say they made it on national television? Twenty-year old Le Mars native Steve Faber sure can. The Le Mars Community High School 2008 graduate is a sophomore at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pa., pursuing a degree in cinema and digital arts...

Nicholson touts 4-H as important life experience (08/05/09)
A family reunion brought former Secretary of Veterans Affairs R. James Nicholson back to his hometown and an opportunity to visit the Plymouth County Fair last Friday. "I can't believe how much its grown. It's spectacular," Nicholson said during an interview at the 4-H Food Stand, indicating his last visit to the fair was about 10 years ago...

Answers not easy in paying for Iowa's roads (07/24/09)
The cost of maintaining Iowa's road system is rising, and the dollars available to pay for it can't keep up. That's according to Plymouth County Engineer Tom Rohe. "The dollars are coming in but the buying power -- what we can buy with those dollars -- has seen a big decrease in the last four or five years," he explained...

Locals back Extension to seek regional office for Le Mars (05/18/09)
Support from community leaders has encouraged the Plymouth County Extension Council to apply for the county to be the site of Regional Extension Education Director's office as part of Iowa State University Extension's reorganization plan. In a restructuring plan announced April 30, Iowa State University Extension will eliminate the 97 county education directors and replace them with 20 Regional Education Education Directors (REED) to serve counties which are grouped into regions...

BoDeans plans expansion with city help (04/09/09)
A planned addition of $5.7 million in new equipment at a local company that bakes ice cream cones and wafers is getting the help for the project from the City of Le Mars. BoDeans Baking, of Le Mars, is set to receive up to $15,000 in a zero-interest loan from the city for a five-year period to help them secure a state grant...

County native chosen as economic development director (04/01/09)
Andrea Westergard is Plymouth County's new economic development director. A Westfield native and graduate of Akron-Westfield High School, Westergard said she's ready to take on new challenges and thinks her Plymouth County background will be a benefit...

Scammers take advantage of troubled economy (03/24/09)
Telephone, Internet and mail scams are everywhere and officials say difficult economic times might make people more vulnerable. Mortgage foreclosure rescue scams are on the rise targeting people desperate to keep their homes, said Bob Brammer, a spokesperson for the Iowa Attorney General's Office...

Stimulus package could help pay for local law enforcement (03/10/09)
The Le Mars Police Department and the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office could be eligible receive a total of more than $30,000 in economic stimulus dollars, according to a release from U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin's office last week. The Le Mars Police Department is set to receive $20,390 and the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office is set to receive $11,069...

Shaky economy has different effects on diners (03/02/09)
Does a downturn in the economy mean more people are eating in rather than eating out? Last week customers at Fareway Stores Inc., in Le Mars, were on both sides of the debate. Dawn Topet, of Le Mars, said her family has been eating out a lot, especially lately because she and her husband work different shifts...

Tucker to serve as Hawarden's city administrator (02/27/09)
Plymouth County's former economic development director has been offered a new position -- that of Hawarden city administrator and city clerk. Gary Tucker, who worked with economic development in Plymouth County for nine years, will officially begin the Hawarden position on March 16, according to Sharole Rens, finance director and interim city clerk for Hawarden...

Economic development director's duties approved (02/11/09)
The Plymouth County Supervisors approved a job description as to duties and responsibilities of an economic development director. That position was vacated when Gary Tucker resigned last month. The supervisors decided to appoint a committee, which will include two supervisors, to interview applicants for the job narrowing the choices down to a handful...

Le Mars United Way Campaign exceeds $85,000 goal (02/11/09)
The Le Mars United Way annual campaign has exceeded their goal this year by raising $92,200. "We are extremely happy with the community support we have been given. After raising nearly $70,000 last year we are thrilled to have raised $92,200 in a year filled with economic challenges," stated Kathy Bartelli, Le Mars United Way Board Chair. "This goes to show the true commitment of the Le Mars community."...

Economic downturn means havoc for Iowa budget woes (02/09/09)
Plymouth County legislators Rep. Chuck Soderberg and Sen. Randy Feenstra said the economic downturn is presenting some real challenges for the Iowa Legislature this year. The two spoke at a 9 a.m. Legislator's Forum Saturday at the Le Mars Public Library...

County economic development director resigns (01/21/09)
Plymouth County's Economic Development Director resigned Tuesday. Gary Tucker, who served in the position for nine years, submitted his letter of resignation -- effective immediately -- after a closed session with the county board of supervisors discussing the position...

To vote or not to vote: Supervisors delay decision on LBIC seats (01/16/09)
The Plymouth County Supervisors are waiting for one more week to decide whether to have voting or non-voting members on the Le Mars Business Initiative Corporation (LBIC). The LBIC is an economic development group aiming to grow existing businesses and industries and bring new companies to Le Mars...

Federal stimulus money could help with county projects (01/12/09)
Potentially free federal money could mean grants for local infrastructure projects in Plymouth County. Dennis Sohl, Plymouth County conservation director, told the Plymouth County supervisors Tuesday that economic stimulus money may be coming from the government...

Museum, ECO Center chosen as grant recipients (01/06/09)
Loess Hills Alliance announced nine organizations within its economic development committee will receive grants for 2009 -- two will go to Plymouth County entities. The Plymouth County Conservation Board will receive $4,000 for construction of its proposed Economic Conservation Opportunities (ECO) Center. The conservation department requested a $10,000 grant...

Le Mars United Way acknowledges outstanding campaigns (01/05/09)
The Le Mars United Way is wrapping up its 2008 campaign and in spite of challenging economic times, is optimistic about reaching its $85,000 goal. That's about $15,000 more than last year's campaign -- which raised $70,000. The optimism of United Way leaders is due in part to local companies that increased their support this year...

Predictions 2009: Where will we be this year? (01/02/09)
Has a fresh start ever looked so good? After a year when 401k reports were as dour as the news reports, and when about 11 months of television were dominated by presidential campaigning, 2009 smells fresh. We asked people around Le Mars and Plymouth County what their predictions are for the new year. Here's what they said...

2008 in review: Hellos and goodbyes (12/31/08)
Editor's note: This is the second of two stories recapping 2008's top stories in the Daily Sentinel. 5. Iowa begins Smokefree Air Act Indoor smoking, except in people's homes, became a rarity after the Smokefree Air Act went into effect in Iowa July 1. ...

Slower economy equals busier library (12/26/08)
Grab a movie. Get a computer program that helps your daughter prepare for the ACT test. PIck up a new framed print for your living room. Where can you do all this for $1? The local library. Libraries have always been the old standby for checking out books and other resources, but with families facing tighter budgets, they're finding out the library has a lot to offer...

Economic development group on the prowl (12/24/08)
The Northwest Iowa Developers Coalition is putting both feet forward in its efforts to bring economic development to the area. Gary Tucker, Plymouth County's economic development director, shared with the Plymouth County Supervisors Tuesday some of the group's plans for 2009...

Uncertain economy pinches health care patients and centers (12/22/08)
Today's economic downturn isn't only affecting what consumers pay at the pump or for groceries, it's also affecting how they pay for health care. Some families have to make a decision as to whether to pay for their health care needs because of higher insurance deductibles, co-pays and larger responsibilities in paying for care...

Libraries need more money to provide additional services (12/18/08)
Plymouth County Library Association asked for an additional $5,000 from the county to shore up its 2009-10 budget. The Plymouth County Supervisors Tuesday heard from Sue Kroesche, Le Mars Public Library director that with the additional $5,000 the county library association's annual budget would be about $70,000...

Museum officials seek county dollars to ride economic storm (12/18/08)
The Plymouth County Historical Museum officials requested the same amount as last year for its 2009-10 fiscal year. Museum officials asked for that $7,000 amount because they understand the economic challenges facing the county's budget for the next year...

Grosenheider, Moir honored with Governor's Volunteer Awards (12/05/08)
Le Mars residents John Grosenheider and Margaret Moir were among those honored with the Governor's Volunteer Award in a ceremony held Nov. 20 in Storm Lake. Governor Chester J. Culver attended the special ceremony to present the awards. The ceremony was postponed from June due to the flooding in eastern Iowa...

Daycare providers face uncertain future in volatile economy (11/21/08)
Is an uneasy economy affecting local child care providers? Area licensed daycare center directors and state registered in-home caregivers have a mixed reaction to that phenomenon. Deb Kroksh, Akron Children's Center director, said she sees families moving away because of lost jobs or parents opting to stay home with children rather than utilize daycare centers...

Rush of young voters? Not so much (11/06/08)
It was all the rumble -- young voters were going to rock the 2008 general election. Turns out it was more of a nudge. According to national exit polls, about 18 percent of the voters Tuesday were under the age of 30. That's up only 1 percent from the 2004, 2000 and 1996 general elections, where 18-29 year olds made up about 17 percent...

Tax Increment Financing: A double edged sword for Le Mars? (10/02/08)
Editor's note: This is the first story in a series looking into how Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is working in Le Mars. Taxes on more than 60 percent of Le Mars commercial properties aren't going into the city's general fund. That money is being set aside to be used for economic development...

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