No injuries were reported after a car experienced an apparent mechanical failure and hit a restaurant last Friday morning, in Guthrie Center. The Iowa State Patrol reports 73-year old Donna Marie Vokes, of Panora, was driving a 2009 Toyota northbound in the parking lot of the Hilltop Cafe at 2003 State Street, when her accelerator became stuck. Vokes was unable to stop her car before it hit the south side of the building at around 9:15-a.m., causing about $2,500 damage to the building and some equipment inside the cafe.

Vokes’ car also sustained $2,500 damage. No citations were issued.

Officials in Montgomery County say one person was arrested Tuesday evening on an assault charge. 22-year old Jamie Paul McDaniel, of Villisca, was taken into custody at around 5:45-p.m. at the Montgomery County Jail. McDaniel was arrested on a valid Montgomery County warrant charging him with Simple Assault. The man posted a $300 cash bond and was released from custody.

EARLY, Iowa (AP) – The Iowa State Patrol says a teenager from Sac County has been killed in a head-on car crash with a recreational vehicle.  The patrol reports the crash occurred Tuesday on Highway 71, south of Early. Authorities say 16-year-old Coral Isle Deal, of Early,  died after driving off the road and then overcorrecting. They say the teen’s Pontiac Vibe crossed the center line and hit a Fleetwood RV driven by a 71-year-old Texas man.

The car was crushed under the RV’s front wheels. The man wasn’t injured. The patrol is investigating.

The Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors Tuesday unanimously voted to approve the sale of $1.9 million in general obligation bonds. The Daily NonPareil reports most of the money will go toward funding the new Veterans Affairs Building. Other funds will go toward new vehicles for various departments, including the Sheriff’s Department, that have already been ordered. The bonds will be sold on Tuesday, Aug. 26th.

County Auditor Marilyn Drake told the paper that expenditures which were normally were paid for from the general fund will now be paid by the debt service fund, as a means of increasing the county’s cash carryover. Drake said she expects the interest rate on the bonds to be just 2 percent to 2.5 percent.

The board on Tuesday approved three different bond measures with one of them not to exceed $300,000, though the estimated cost should be in the neighborhood of $222,000. That will pay for seven, maybe eight, new patrol cars.  Another bond, not to exceed $100,000, will pay for such items as bullet-proof vests for the deputies and the installation of automatic external defibrillators to help keep heart victims alive. The third bond, not to exceed $120,000 is for new vehicles for the Planning and Maintenance departments.

Those will be added a $1.5 million bond for the new Veterans Affairs building near the courthouse. Drake said the bonds will be sold Aug. 26th at 2:30 p.m.. She said she expects them to be paid off withing seven-years, through the use of property taxes.  How much each property owner will pay won’t be known until the bonds are purchased.

Fuels analysts fear gasoline prices in Iowa could be about to jump following recent problems at three refineries in the Midwest region. That comes after more than two months of steady gas price declines in the state. Rose White, spokeswoman for Triple-A-Iowa, says there was a big fire at a major refinery in Coffeyville, Kansas, on July 29th. “Repairs are expected to take about four weeks,” White says. “Also, there’s some reported problems at a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, as well as one in El Dorado, Kansas.”

An interruption at one regional refinery might not be so bad, but she says slow-downs or complete halts at three Midwestern fuel facilities could spell a price hike due to reduced supply.  “The good news is, there is a good supply already built up in the inventory levels,” White says. “This might provide some cushion and help prevent severe spikes.” Iowa’s been seeing prices at the pump drop steadily since early June, but White says that could be about to end, even though demand is starting to drop off with the end of the summer driving season.

“Refinery production had been at record high levels in the Midwest this summer,” White says. “That’s going to provide some needed cushion to help weather these problems. Prices do continue to drop across most states in the region but that could change in the next few days.” Triple-A says gas prices in Iowa are averaging three-36 a gallon, that’s nine cents below the national average. Also, prices statewide have fallen 14 cents in the past month and more than 30 cents since June 1st.

(Radio Iowa)

The organizers of an Honor Flight for Korean War veterans to Washington, D-C says they’ve gotten enough donations to more than triple the number of veterans going along. The chairman of the Central and Western Iowa Honor Flight organization, Jeff Ballenger, says Polk County put up 125-thousand dollars for the trip. They planned on taking 130 veterans, but they got many more applications than that for the flight, and asked donors to help.

He says Hy-Vee and Caseys have each donated 110-thousand dollars and the Polk County Supervisors have come up with an additional 70-thousand dollars to go along with smaller donations from Bill Knapp and Kurt Rassmussen. “We are truly blessed, we now have enough to take at least 400 of our veterans, and we feel that that will probably be just about everybody that wants to go,” Ballenger says. He says the veterans come from many areas.

“We’ve got ’em from Pottawattamie, Mills, Decatur — but I would say the majority are from Polk County are — but they are actually coming from counties all the way to the Missouri River to here in central Iowa,” Ballenger says. The flights allow the veterans to go to Washington, D-C for free to see the monuments built in their honor. “We did start with World War Two and this will I believe actually be our 12th flight,” Ballenger says. “We feel blessed. With these 400 veterans, we will have taken nearly three-thousand World War Two and Korean veterans and raised just under three million dollars.” Ballenger says he recently got a letter from the family of a veteran who had gone on a flight in 2009.

He says the veteran was so proud of the trip and the World War Two Honor Flight hat that he got, that his family buried him in the hat after he died in July. “These flights mean a lot to our veterans and it’s a very, very small thing that we can do to say thank you,” according to Ballenger. He says anyone can donate to help pay for the flights.

Ballenger says the donations are tax deductible and you can send them to: Central Iowa Honor Flight; P-O Box 125; Council Bluffs, Iowa, 5-1-5-0-2. You can also call 712-322-6638, or visit the website: www.centraliowahonorflight.org. The flight will leave on September 30th.

(Radio Iowa)