WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — A frequent speaker at the Waterloo City Council meetings got steamed when the mayor asked him to take off his hat. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports that Mayor Quentin Hart halted Tuesday’s meeting after exchanging words with Dwayne Eilers. Eilers has been attending council meetings to complain that he’s being singled out by code enforcement officers while other people with similar property violations are not receiving citations. Eilers has taken off his hat at previous meetings in accordance with the mayor’s desire for public decorum. But Eilers objected to the rule Tuesday.

Eilers told the mayor: “I refuse to remove my hat because I have the right to be my own person, not the person you want me to be.” Said the mayor: “Please remove your hat, Mr. Eilers. We’re not going to be a spectacle tonight.” Hart recessed the meeting, and Eilers left before police officers could escort him from the building.

Atlantic Fire Chief Mark McNees, this (Thursday) morning, said the cause of a house fire that took place early Wednesday morning at 107 E. 9th Street, was determined be accidental. An investigation at the scene by Chief McNees and Fire/Arson investigator Paul Wood, as well as interviews conducted by the AFD and the APD, determined that the blaze at around 3:20-a.m., was caused by a lit candle coming into contact with furniture and papers in the residence. 64-year old Rick Parrot was at home at the time of the blaze and was awakened by flames surrounding his head, after he fell asleep while reading a paper, on a couch just inside the main entrance of the home. Parrott attempted to extinguish the blaze by using pillows, but the fire quickly spread and he was forced out of the home by the heat and smoke. Parrott, who has mobility issues, then attempted to wake neighbors as the fire spread throughout the home. He continued to travel away from the scene to a friends home with the intent to return by vehicle, but did not do so during the incident.

McNees said in a press release “ Mr. Parrott was very fortunate to have escaped the blaze unharmed and we are thankful of that. While it would have been very helpful to know he was safely out of the home, it’s somewhat understandable that he was in shock and didn’t make it back before we left. Police did establish through relatives that he was not in the home during the time we were on scene. “

The results of the investigation match details of the incident and the fire will be ruled accidental. McNees cautioned residents that candles are one of the leading causes of home fires and should never be left unattended.

(Radio Iowa) — A two-day summit on how to improve life in our small, rural towns opens this morning (Thursday) in north-central Iowa’s Hamilton County. The keynote speaker of the “Rural That Works” conference is Ben Winchester, a rural sociologist at the University of Minnesota Extension. Winchester says we need to rewrite the rural narrative. “This isn’t your grandpa’s rural, we’re not all farmers anymore,” Winchester says. “The economy, social life and demographically, we’re very different than we used to be.”

In decades past, people may recall how all of the Main Street storefronts were filled and how primary industries were very apparent in our small towns. Things have changed, he says, but not necessarily for the worse. “It’s easy when you drive up and down Main Street to see the boarded up buildings or where the elementary school used to be,” Winchester says, “but at the same time, our housing stocks are many times filled, our populations continue to migrate in and out, and we get people involved in social life, so we’ve got a number of folks even creating non-profits around their interests.”

While concerns are often raised about the “brain drain” as high school graduates move away, he says some rural areas are seeing a “brain gain” as young-to-middle-aged professionals move in. “What we’ve found here in Minnesota, through our research, and really across the country, is a trend of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s moving to our rural communities,” Winchester says. “They’re moving there for a variety of reasons, quality of life, safety and security, for the low cost of housing, and for employment opportunities.”

Winchester will speak at noon today at Backcountry Winery in Stratford. Other meetings are taking place at the Jewell Golf and Country Club.

On the web at www.ruralthatworks.com

CLERMONT, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a driver died after his sport utility vehicle ran into a pond in northeast Iowa. The Fayette County Sheriff’s Office says 30-year-old Steven Baker Jr. lost control of his SUV Tuesday. It ran through a fence into the pond at the Skip-A-Way Resort in Clermont. The vehicle submerged completely in the deep part of the pond. Rescue efforts were unsuccessful, and Baker was pronounced dead at the scene. He lived in Elgin.