Two area newspapers have announced they will cease operations next week. The Danish Villages Voice will publish its last issue on Christmas. Officials with the publication pointed to declining revenue. The Walnut Bureau’s last issue is also set to be on December 25th, with hopes of selling the business due to declining advertising and subscriptions.

(KNOD)

No injuries were reported following two separate accidents Thursday morning, in Glenwood. According to the Police Department, the first accident occurred at around 7-a.m. at the intersection of north Linn and 11th Streets.

Officials say a 2000 Toyota Camry driven by 17-year old Jordan Grassau, of Glenwood, was traveling south on north Linn Street, as a 2003 Lincoln Navigator driven by 38-year old Molly Carr-Gross, of Silver City, was slowing to make a left turn onto 11th Street. Due to the snow covered, slick roads, the SUV was unable to complete the turn and continued south on Linn. Grassau was unable to stop quickly enough due to the slick conditions, and hit the SUV in the rear. Damage amounted to $4,000.

The second accident happened about an hour later, at 1st and north Walnut Streets, in Glenwood. Authorities say a 2012 Ford F-150 pickup driven by 58-year old Julie Snyder, of Malvern, was on 1st Street entering the intersection eastbound from a stop sign at Walnut, when a 1999 Dodge Dakota pickup driven by 18-year old Caleb Barns, of Glenwood, was unable to stop as it was traveling south on Walnut. The pickups collided, causing $2,250 damage to Snyder’s truck. Slick road conditions contributed to the crash.

No citations were issued following the accidents.

Police in Creston say a Ringgold County man was arrested Thursday morning at the Union County Law Enforcement Center, on a warrant for charges of Going Armed with Intent, and Criminal Mischief in the 3rd Degree. 29-year old Aaron James Mangum, of Tingley, was being held in the Union County Jail on $5,000 bond.

The 7:06-a.m. Newscast with KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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A traffic stop early this (Friday) morning in Montgomery County resulted on a felony OWI/3rd offense charge for a Stanton man. Sheriff’s officials say 20-year old Cody Benjamin Johnson was taken into custody at around 12:20-a.m. and brought to the Montgomery County Jail, where he was being held on $5,000 bond.

An ethics complaint filed against the superintendent of the Treynor Community School District has prompted two charges in an administrative law court seeking professional disciplinary action. According to the Daily NonPareil, Superintendent Kevin Elwood is accused of allowing the Treynor school district to hire a custodian in the summer of 2013 who Elwood allegedly was aware had sexually assaulted a student.

The Red Oak Community School District will build a $13 million new facility either as an addition to its existing high school or adjacent to it as part of the same campus complex. Superintendent Terry Schmidt told the Omaha World-Herald the school board decided Monday, in a 3-2 vote, to approve the first phase of Tiger Vision, the district’s facilities plan that seeks to eventually move all district schools to two nearby campuses.

Several community members spoke at the meeting, he said. The school board had already postponed a decision to seek an additional public hearing and community members were invited to participate in the Tiger Vision planning process. Schmidt said the plan will be to close Red Oak Community Middle School, which is more than 100 years old and has been temporarily shuttered since the Labor Day weekend because of flooding but will reopen its doors in early January.

The existing high school will be renovated for middle-schoolers, which is a common use for older high school buildings, he said. Grades six through 12 would be housed at the expanded campus, with fifth-graders possibly traveling to the new middle school location as well, depending on enrollment, Schmidt said.

Money for the project is being raised using the district’s physical plant and equipment levy and state sales tax proceeds. A general obligation bond is expected to be needed for the second phase, which would bring together elementary students into one renovated campus. Total estimated costs for the Tiger Vision projects are between $23 million and $27 million. Schmidt said work on the first phase will begin this summer, which was why the board needed to make a decision as soon as possible.

Governor Terry Branstad held an hour-long hearing Thursday evening, to give members of the public a chance to comment on state spending priorities for the coming year. Most of the 20 people who spoke represented trade groups and associations. Sharon Presnall, a vice president of the Iowa Bankers Association, is also on the Iowa Taxpayers Association board of directors. She urged the governor to “seriously consider” cutting income taxes. “Frankly states with the best tax climates have broad bases and low rates and this is an area that we think that Iowa can do a little bit better in,” Presnall said. “And I also think at the end of the day by doing that you actually generate more revenue.”

Justine Stevenson, director of government relations for the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association, urged the governor to find a way to finance repairs of “deteriorating rural roads and bridges.” “A delay in addressing the shortfall in transportation infrastructure has increased the cost to make those necessary repairs and improvements,” Stevenson said. “Recognizing the serious condition of our roads and bridges, you are working with legislative leaders and interest groups to craft a bipartisan solution. We commend you for this effort and will work to support the responsible funding plans that may be developed.”

For the past five years legislators and the governor have talked about raising the state gas tax or finding a new way to finance road and bridge construction, but there’s been no resolution. Scott Newhard is executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors of Iowa, the trade group for companies that build highways and bridges or supply the materials for that construction.  “Roads should be paid for by users, including out-of-state drivers on a pay-as-you-go basis and with constitutionally-protected funds,” Newhard said. State fuel taxes are placed on the Road Use Tax Fund and, according to the state constitution, money in that fund may only be used for the state’s transportation system.

Newhard asked the governor to tamp down any talk of using general state tax dollars to pay for roads and bridges. Each speaker at last night’s budget hearing was given three minutes to make their pitch and about 10 people who came to speak were unable to make it into the hearing room in the one-hour allotted for the event. The governor did hear from lobbyists for community colleges and nursing homes concerned about state support of their institutions, plus trade group representatives seeking state money for water quality initiatives.

Members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement who were stuck waiting outside the hearing room said state government should focus on preventing water pollution by limiting manure and farm chemical use on cropland rather than giving farmers money to construct barriers that prevent run-off.

(Radio Iowa)

Iowa farmland values saw their biggest drop in almost three decades in the latest survey released by Iowa State University, Thursday. The Center for Agricultural and Rural Development is taking over the survey duties from retired economics professor Mike Duffy. But Duffy helped crunch the numbers this year. “What we saw was an eight-point-nine percent drop,” Duffy says. “When you look, the primary reasons the survey respondents gave for the drop were lower commodity prices.”

The drop means an average value of acre of farmland in the state fell 779-dollars to seven-thousand-943 dollars. Duffy says it’s not surprising the value would drop given the drop in commodity prices and the impact seen in other areas of the economy. “You know if you use just the basic formula — land values to income divided by the interest rate — right now when the income drops, then we would expect to see the land values drop. And in fact, I think it’s probably a sign that the market is working when we do see responses like this,” Duffy says.

It is only the second year since 1999 that the survey has shown a decline in farmland values. The drop has some people asking if land prices will continue on the way down after hitting a peak in 2013, just like they peaked and dropped in the 1980’s. Duffy doesn’t see that comparison. “My personal feeling is that we went into the fall that we did in the early 80’s because we went on a speculative bubble,” Duffy says. “The increase that we’ve just experienced until this year, I think has been more income driven.” Even with the decrease, he says farmland values are more than double what they were 10 years ago, 81 percent higher than 2009 values, and 18 percent higher than 2011 values.  “Even though it’s not good news that it dropped, it is a response to the market. And my personal feeling is that it doesn’t say that we are going to see major drops now for the next several years,” according to Duffy. He believes the values have settled in to adjust to the economic situation.

“My guess, if we see corn end up in the three-50 to four-dollar range and beans in the 10-dollar range, which is kind of what it looks like now, we good expect to see these land values stabilizing, maybe a little more down, but stabilizing and kind of holding in there,” Duffy says. For the second year in a row, Scott County in eastern Iowa had the highest land values and Decatur County in south-central Iowa reported the lowest farmland values. Decatur County reported a value per acre of three-thousand-587 dollars ($3,587) or a drop of 41 dollars an acre from last year’s report. While Scott County reported a value of 11-thousand-618 dollars ($11,618) or a decline of about 795 dollars and acre, which was about 22 dollars more per acre than the statewide average. Southeast Iowa was the only crop reporting district in the state to show an overall increase in values.

“We had seven counties down in that area that reported an increase in value,” Duffy says. “Southeast had drought a couple of years ago, so they had not been increasing — think that is part of the reason. I think that they had record corn yields.” He also says increased livestock values caused more of a demand for pasture land in the southeast. Southeast Iowa reported land values were three-point-two percent (3.2) higher than last year. Keokuk County, located in that southeastern portion of the state, reported the largest percentage increase for any single county at two-point-four (2.4) percent. To find out more on the survey, go tohttp://www.card.iastate.edu/land-value/2014/