MARATHON, Iowa (AP) – A northwestern Iowa town is considering turning to the sun to provide power to its nearly 250 residents. The Sioux City Journal reports that the town of Marathon in Buena Vista County is considering building a 1.42-megawatt solar project on city-owned land to supply power to residents. The more than 1,400 solar panels would be built on a former baseball field.

A study by renewable energy company Trusted Energy, based in Spencer, says the proposed project would save Marathon residents $2 million over 20 years in electric costs and produce 2 million kilowatt hours per year.  Currently, Marathon receives its electrical service from the neighboring city of Laurens.

The Marathon City Council agreed to look into the project at a meeting earlier this month.

Democrats across the country are regrouping after the 2016 triumph of Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans. Iowa Democratic Party leaders will convene today (Saturday) to elect a new chairperson. Eight people are competing for the job to lead the party as it prepares for 2018, when Iowans will hold an election for governor. A state senator who many party insiders had hoped would run for governor announced this week she would not. Liz Mathis of Cedar Rapids says it was a family decision.
“We just concluded in the end that we weren’t in a place right now where that would be something that we could do,” Mathis says.

Mathis, a former T-V anchor in eastern Iowa, says she cannot afford to quit her current job at a social service agency in Cedar Rapids to run for governor full time, plus her husband has started a business and worried about the impact of a campaign.
“When I was a reporter, he moved to a couple of different cities with me and then he established roots in starting a business. He was gravely concerned about how that would affect him personally, how it would affect his business and the prying that happens sometimes by people who want to destroy you instead of champion you…

“Thinking through all this,” she said, “I guess the cons were more personal in how that would shape my life and my personal life and I really love my husband and I want to keep him around, because he’s a big supporter.” Mathis was concerned about the impact a campaign might have on her two daughters, plus she’s run three expensive campaigns for her state senate seat in the past five years. “And that’s pretty rigorous,” Mathis says. “The first one…in 2011….was a free-for-all….It was kind of like a congressional race compressed into seven weeks.”

After winning that special election in November of 2011, she was reelected in 2012 to a full term. She calls her 2016 a “hollow victory” since so many Democrats elsewhere suffered losses. Mathis says she hopes to help OTHER Democratic candidates run and win in 2018. Another Democrat from Cedar Rapids has taken HIS name out of the mix for the 2018 gubernatorial campaign. Rob Hogg says he will run for reelection to the state senate. Hogg also has the new responsibility as leader of Senate Democrats to help recruit candidates for the state senate. Hogg must also raise campaign money for all the Democrats running for senate seats next year, not just himself.

(Radio Iowa)

A search for a 15-year old female missing since an accident early Thursday morning in Crawford County, has turned to a recovery mission. KTIV in Sioux City reports the search for the unidentified teen ended Friday night, but was expected to resume this (Saturday) morning, with several K-9 units and a dive team. The Western Iowa Expo Building at the Crawford County Fairgrounds in Denison has been turned into the command Center for the search.

At about 7:25 p.m. Friday, the dispatch center at the law enforcement center issued a call for all available EMS personnel to meet at the command center at 8:30 a.m. today (Saturday). Five dogs from Yankton, South Dakota, and from Ankeny are expected to join in the search. Three of the dogs are trained for water tracking and the other two for tracking on the ground.

Crawford County Sheriff James Steinkuehler said the search of the river would be from the fairgrounds on south. He said he is confident of the thoroughness of the search of the river from the scene of the accident, north of Denison, to the fairgrounds.The sheriff said the search parties would work as late as they can today,  and hope to have success.

The accident was reported about 3 a.m. Thursday in rural Crawford County. Authorities say the car was carrying five people when it ran off a rural road into the river. Four who reached safety on their own or were rescued were taken to a Denison hospital. Deputies, firefighters and a dive team searched the river and its banks until 11:15 p.m. Thursday but had to stop because of heavy fog. The searchers returned Friday morning.