the grundy register
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The Grundy RegisterThursday, December 29, 2016 Serving Grundy County since 1928 Grundy Center, IowaVolume 92 - Number 52 www.TheGrundyRegister.com $1 Newsstand Price
The Grundy Register, P.O. Box 245, Grundy Center, IA 50638Phone: (319) 824-6958 • Fax: (319) 824-6288 • E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
A Year In Review
2016
By RoB MahaRRy and Michaela Kendall
The Grundy RegisterHeated disputes over wind tur-
bines, a possible first of it’s kind school district dissolution, and a fi-nal decision on the former First Bap-tist Church were just a few headlines to grace the front page of The Grun-dy Register this year.
Some of these events had a larg-er impact than others, but each one left a lasting impression on Grundy County.
What follows in the pages of this week’s paper is a compilation of the top news stories of 2016 put together by the news staff here at The Grundy Register.
2016 was a memorable year, full of exciting news stories and heart-felt human interest stories, and we look forward to seeing what 2017 has in store for Grundy County.
2016: The year in reviewThe top news stories of the year,
as selected by the Grundy Register editorial staff.
1. down it goes: Grundy center council votes to demolish former Baptist church
When the city of Grundy Center acquired the former Baptist Church from the county in September of 2015 after a drawn out battle be-tween former owner Tracy Zenor and the board of supervisors, the city council had hopes of preserving and potentially transforming the build-ing.
At a February 15 meeting, the council voted to apply for a DNR derelict building grant, and the for-mer church was named on Preser-vation Iowa’s “Most Endangered Buildings of 2016” list. The goal was to rehabilitate it enough to sell it off to a private developer, and in late May, the city received $87,400 in grant funding to be put toward cleanup and testing.
As the year drug on and little changed, however, enthusiasm for preserving the building began to wane. By November, a section of the roof had collapsed, and private developers showed little interest in
taking on the daunting task of reno-vating the facility. Because city offi-cials were unwilling to use any local tax funds on the project, the budget was extremely limited, and with the winter and the end of the year on the horizon, it was time to make a de-cision.
Finally, on December 5, the coun-cil voted unanimously to demolish and deconstruct the building, citing the fact that it was in a state of disre-pair, and there was no guarantee of a return on investment.
FEH Architects of Des Moines has been contracted to assist with the deconstruction process, and demoli-tion is tentatively scheduled for next June.
2. opposing factions spar over wind farm issue
Although 2015 was the year of the Rock Island Clean Line in terms of local hot-button issues, wind farms were the focal point of 2016, as the Grundy County Board of Su-pervisors gave the green light for a 90 megawatt project in the Ivester area and later rejected a proposal that would have effectively banned any further wind turbine develop-ments in the future.
The topic of wind farms first came back into the public conscience in February, when the planning and zoning commission voted 6-0 to re-ject the Ivester proposal from EDF Renewable Energy, despite the fact that it did not violate the zoning ordinance as it was written. Board chairman Duane Dirks cited preserv-ing Grundy County’s rich soils and row cropland as his chief concern.
In March, an EDF Representative made a pitch to the supervisors, who hold veto power over all planning and zoning decisions, touting the potential of millions of dollars in tax revenues as well as payouts to af-fected landowners as major benefits of the plan.
On April 11, the board voted 4-0 (Supervisor Jim Ross, who plans to put a turbine on land that he owns in the area, abstained) to approve the project and override the zon-ing commission amidst a crowded courtroom. Friction between the two
boards grew as speakers on both sides of the issue wondered why the planning and zoning commission ex-isted if it did not have the power to make decisions on its own.
In June, Dirks resigned after publishing a pointed letter at the su-pervisors, and two other members who voted against the wind farm also stepped down. The new board, by a narrow 4-3 vote (all three of those who voted against the change were new members), recommended a change that would have removed wind energy conversion systems over 100 kilowatts as a permit-ted use in A-2 agricultural districts and could have potentially stalled the Ivester project before a second round of rezoning hearings, but once again, the supervisors struck down the proposal.
At another hearing in September, the supervisors voted 4-0-1 (Chuck Bakker abstained) to keep the law as it is and potentially allow further projects in the county. When Ivester is completed, there will be two wind farms in the county, with the other located near Wellsburg.
Independent candidate David Strickler challenged Ross, a Re-publican, for his seat in district one, where the Ivester farm will be locat-ed, but Ross easily won re-election by almost 40 percentage points.
3. G-R board declares dissolu-tion petition invalid
A lengthy process that could have ended with the first voluntary school district dissolution by public refer-endum in the history of the state of Iowa came to a screeching halt in late August when the Gladbrook-Re-inbeck school board declared a peti-tion to dissolve the district invalid, keeping G-R intact as it struggles with low enrollment numbers and tight budgets.
It all began in February of 2015 when the board voted 5-2 to close the campus in Gladbrook and move all classes to Reinbeck due to a pro-jected savings of $400,000 in oper-ational costs, sparking outrage and a wave of open enrollment to near-by GMG in the southern half of the district. Before long, a petition had
See yeaR in Review page 3
Compiled by Grundy Register sports editor Jake Ryder.
Johnson's runner-up bid highlights state grapplers
Trent Johnson began what would become a very eventful year, finishing as state runner-up in the Class 1A 145-pound weight class at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. Johnson lost his only match of his junior season to Lisbon's Carter Happel in a 7-1 decision that clinched Happel's fourth-consecutive title, only the 25th Iowan wrestler to accomplish that feat in a high school career.
Happel finished with the second-most victories in state history with
The year in sports
been filed, and the dissolution com-mission was tasked with drawing up a feasible plan for what would hap-pen to the district’s assets if such a referendum were to pass.
On March 29, hundreds of res-idents piled into the high school gym to share opinions on the mat-ter, and in August, a plan to divide the district’s territory between five neighboring districts, with Reinbeck going to Dike-New Hartford and Gladbrook to GMG, was presented and approved.
At the board’s meeting on August 22, new Superintendent David Hill and the district’s legal counsel de-termined that the petition was actu-ally invalid because most of the 713 signatures had been signed before it was finalized in May of 2015. Thus, a vote that could have come as early as December and dismantled a district that had existed in its current itera-tion for almost 30 years was called off, and the G-R district remained intact. With an actual enrollment of just 438 students for 2016-2017, however, low enrollment continues to be an issue.
4. Grundy center board nar-rowly approves gym addition
Emotions ran high at the Grundy Center School Board meeting as the board was faced with a decision: ap-
prove the proposed second gym at the middle school-high school for an estimated cost of $3 million, or delay the vote and consider other options.
Ultimately, a majority vote led to the approval of the gym project, but not without considerable comment from members of the public, as well as coaches and administrators on both sides of the issue.
Although every board member, coach and community member who spoke at the meeting was in favor of building a new gym, the ‘when,’ ‘where’ and ‘how’ of the gym were not as easily agreed upon.
During the public forum, com-munity members voiced concerns about whether or not the board had considered other options for the size and location of the gym, or whether or not there was enough input from community members, coaches and administrators during the initial dis-cussion of the gym. Several commu-nity members said they thought the board should delay voting, and take more time to look at options.
5. Republicans dominate elec-tion locally, nationally
Republican Donald Trump be-came the 45th president of the Unit-ed States, and he won Iowa’s six electoral votes, the first time the state
has gone red since 2004. Trump re-ceived almost two-thirds of the votes cast in Grundy County, and locally, Republican incumbent county super-visor Jim Ross survived a challenge from independent David Strickler to secure his fourth term in the office.
According to the unofficial re-sults, 4,516 of the 6,932 voters who cast ballots in the traditionally con-servative county (65.1 percent) went for Trump, compared to just 26.6 percent (1,847) for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Libertar-ian Gary Johnson also received 3.4 percent of the vote, registering the strongest third party showing.
Grundy County Republican chairman Brian Andersen did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday evening.
A total of 1,421 residents in dis-trict one, which comprises Beaman, Conrad and the surrounding rural areas, cast votes in the supervisors’ race, and Ross received 65.2 percent of them while Strickler received 357 votes (25.1 percent). The two can-didates primarily sparred over the issue of wind farm development in the county as Ross favored it, and Strickler opposed any further proj-ects.
209, but his win over Johnson was only the third time in 16 state tournament matches that Happel had not ended a match with a pinfall.
Also finding his way to the podium at the state meet was Johnson's teammate Kody Kugel, finishing in fourth place at 126 pounds after reaching the semifinals to earn a state-placewinner medal in his senior season.
AGWSR's Michael Young finished his high-school grappling career as the sixth-place wrestler at 285 pounds and fellow Cougar Caleb Meinders, a junior, was seventh at 220 pounds.
SH-BCLUW's 113-pounder Ian
Showers, also a junior, qualified for the Class 2A meet but did not place after falling to eventual 113-pound champion Justin Portillo from Clarion-Goldfield-Dows.
G-R's Smoldt leads Rebels in return at state
The Gladbrook-Reinbeck boys' basketball team made it back to the state tournament after winning it all in 2015, and though the Rebels came up short as the fourth-place team when the dust settled, Joe Smoldt was recognized for the second consecutive season as
See SPoRTS Review page 4