Officials in the Siouxland school districts of Okoboji and Le Mars will soon be able to carry out plans to add buildings to educate more students.
Amid the November 5 slate of traditional contests for legislative, and county-level positions to be determined by voters, there were six public school bond issue votes on ballots in Northwest Iowa.
Two of those school infrastructure measures were passed, and four failed, including three in Woodbury County.
School bond measures in Iowa require a 60 percent supermajority of affirmative voting to pass.
The most expensive measure was passed, as Okoboji School District voters with a 62 percent affirmation approved $69 million for an addition onto the high school and to build a new elementary school on the west edge of Milford. The district has seen a 23 percent increase in enrollment over the last decade, at a time when many Siouxland districts are struggling to maintain enrollment.
The elementary school groundbreaking could come in spring 2025.
In the Le Mars School District in Plymouth County, 61 percent of people voted for a proposal for $50 million. The total cost for a new elementary school building is $67 million, but district officials have set aside other revenues, such as sales tax, to pay the full amount.
Sergeant Bluff-Luton district voters continued the trend of defeating several measures to borrow to expand facilities in recent years. This year, the SB-L bond issue proposal for $54.6 million got 55 percent of the vote.
Other school bond measure defeats came in the Hinton School District, where 57 percent of voters supported a $11.9 million proposal, and $18.6 million facilities plan at Westwood of Sloan, Iowa that only got 51 percent. The other defeat came with the $17 million plan at the Lawton-Bronson School District that received 52 percent.
There was one more bond issue measure in the area, although not for a school project. In Sac County, voters narrowly defeated spending $11 million for a new jail in Sac City.
The current jail facility received a recent inspection that showed it does not meet standards. Sheriff Ken McClure said the fact that 59 percent of people supported it encourages county officials to find a fiscally responsible solution.
*Additionally, recreational users of the Missouri River are being urged to stay off the waterway, after untreated wastewater flowed into the river at Sioux City on Wednesday.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources in a release described being notified by the city of Sioux City officials that an equipment failure at the Floyd lift station resulted in two million gallons of untreated wastewater going into the Bacon Creek Channel. That channel was dry prior to the incident, and it an unknown amount of the wastewater went into the Missouri River.
No dead fish were found as of Wednesday, and the Iowa DNR has notified downstream surface water systems with the cities of Council Bluffs, Omaha, and Blair, Nebraska, about the incident.
*In other news, carbon dioxide pipeline opponents in the Midwest say they secured a win at the ballot box last night.
Voters in South Dakota rejected a state law that would have made it harder for counties to regulate the location of CO2 pipelines.
Much of the opposition to the project boils down to safety and the use of eminent domain. Ed Fischbach, a South Dakota landowner, spoke on a press call.
“This has been a grueling fight we’ve been going on for three and a half years, and last night’s results were particularly gratifying and humbling,” Fischbach said.
Summit Carbon Solutions wants to build a 2,500 mile pipeline across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and the Dakotas, to store CO-2 emissions from ethanol plants deep underground.
Construction cannot begin in Iowa until North and South Dakota approve the project.
Summit officials on Wednesday said they will apply for another pipeline permit in South Dakota later this month, adding, “Our focus continues to be on working with landowners and ensuring the long-term viability of ethanol and agriculture in the state.”
