GRAND JUNCTION, Iowa (AP) — A central Iowa fire chief has been accused of being drunk while driving an ambulance and taking a patient to a hospital. Greene County court records say 39-year-old Thomas Launderville is charged with operating while intoxicated, second offense. A Jefferson City police officer says in the records that he heard Launderville slur his words during a radio call late Friday as Launderville drove the Grand Junction ambulance and a patient to Greene County Medical Center in Jefferson. Launderville has since been dismissed as the Grand Junction fire chief.

Thomas Launderville, is seen in photo provided by the Greene County (Iowa) Jail. (Greene County (Iowa) Jail via AP)

The records say the officer arrested Launderville at the hospital, and a breath test later showed Launderville had a blood alcohol content of more than twice the legal limit.

A near head-on collision occurred late Monday night, in Crawford County, resulting in two people being injured. The Iowa State Patrol says the crash happened at 11:55-p.m. on Highway 59, between X and W Avenues. Authorities report a 2002 Chevy pickup driven by 37-year old Johnathan Miguel Casteneda Mendoza, of Denison, was traveling north on Highway 59, at the same time a 2005 Freightliner semi driven by 63-year old Juan Manuel Ortiz, of Chaska, MN., was traveling southbound.

For reasons unknown, the pickup crossed the center line of the road into the southbound lane, in front of the semi. When the vehicles collided in an off-set manner, the pickup rotated to the east and came to rest facing west in the northbound late, partially on the east shoulder. The semi entered the west ditch and rolled onto its driver’s side, burst into flames and burned.

Mendoza was transported by Crawford County Ambulance to the Crawford County Memorial Hospital, in Denison. Ortiz was flown by Med Air 1 to the UNMC, in Omaha. Both drivers were wearing their seat belts. The accident remains under investigation.

(Radio Iowa/KJAN) — Iowa’s Secretary of State says it’s important for people to vote in today’s (Tuesday) city and school board elections. The polls are open from 7-a.m. until 8-p.m. Local election results will be posted as soon as the results are available. They can be found online on the kjan.com News page, and our social media sites (Facebook & Twitter).

Secretary of State Paul Pate says city government is the most efficient and effective level of government.  “Who’s going to decide how to make sure your neighborhood is safe? How many policemen and where will they be? That’s local government,” Pate says. “You’re going to have a fire department that’s going to be there when you need them. When you talk about key things like streets, you make take them for granted today, but I guarantee if you ever have a trash problem, you’re going to call you your city government and want to know where it’s at.”

Especially in smaller communities, Pate says it only takes a handful of people to decide an election. “More local races are impacted by a smaller number of people than you can imagine. Ten to 20 people could push an election one way or the other,” Pate says. “So it doesn’t take having thousands, if you spend some time looking just looking at your phone contact list and making some calls, you could be the impacting force that got someone elected to one of these positions.”

Every year, there are local elections that are decided by single digits, or in the cases of a tie, a name being drawn out of a hat.  “We have many elections that are that close where you’re doing that, that are won and lost by 10 and 20 votes more than most candidates ever wanted to have happen. That’s here in Iowa and multiply that across the country,” he says. “Every vote counts, and we want to make it as simple and easy to vote as we can, and we’re going make it is hard as we can for people to cheat.”

Besides winning elections to the Iowa legislature and to two separate terms as Secretary of State, Pate won municipal elections in November 2001 and 2003 for mayor in Cedar Rapids.

(Radio Iowa) — Firefighters are investigating after a body was found in a burning home in northwest Iowa Monday morning. The Spencer Fire Department was called shortly after ten o’clock Monday morning to a report of a structure fire with an occupant possibly still inside. Once on scene, firefighters made entry into the home where a primary search found a closed bedroom door.

A search of the room revealed the origin of the flames and the body of 72-year-old Lawrence Bendlin. Fire crews spent around three hours at the scene and were able to contain fire damage to the one room with smoke damage seen throughout the structure.