Letters to the Editor: Storm Lake truck routes

I am writing this to clear up the discussions regarding the truck routes in Storm Lake.

I live on West Fifth Street, a residential street. There has been an increase in truck traffic the last few years. Truck traffic became worse when the Hwy. 110 and 7 intersection project started.  The intersection opened last year but the truck traffic has not decreased on West Fifth. I see Walmart, Walgreens, Hy-Vee, grain trucks, hog trailers, Tyson reefer trucks, etc., go by.

I first requested that truck traffic on West Fifth be addressed in June 2022, when I noticed the truck traffic increasing. My wife and I were invited to a city traffic safety meeting on June 28, 2022, due to our concerns. At this meeting, Josh Pope, an engineer with Bolton & Menk, was present. Pope told us that nothing could be done about the truck traffic on West Fifth Street because the federal government designates it as a truck route.  He was referencing the Federal Highway Classification Systems map which is actually a traffic study pattern map used for planning and allocating funds. I am not sure why Mr. Pope was passing this map off as a truck route map. The federal government only recognizes highways 7, 71 and 110 as truck routes, not West Fifth Street. During our meeting, we were also told the truck traffic would lessen upon completion of the Hwy. 110 and 7 intersection.

On June 22, 2022, I sent an email to Jessica Felix (Iowa DOT 3rd District Engineer) regarding rock/gravel truck traffic through Storm Lake on West Fifth Street caused by road construction on Hwy. 31. In that email, I told her that I hated mentioning the truck route signs because the city administrator will just remove them.  I had mentioned the signs on Hwy. 110 to the city administrator who was frustrated with my request and said she would just remove the signs. Shortly thereafter, the signage including the state Hwy. 110 directional and the truck route signs were removed. Normally you cover the signs affected by road construction; you do not remove them.

I sent an email to the city council Sept. 11, 2024, requesting the city enforce Section 9-12-9 of the City Code for Storm Lake regulating truck routes. I asked the city to reinstall the signs on Hwy. 110 directing truck traffic to remain on Hwy. 110 and head north to Hwy. 7 which was removed in 2022, as directed by the city administrator. I understand there is a question whether the signage existed and I have found photos from 2021 demonstrating the signs and their locations.

I attended the city council meeting Oct. 7, 2024, to address the truck traffic issues. At that time, I stated that the city could enforce their existing code and reinstall the truck route signs regarding Hwy. 110 on the west side of town to alleviate the truck traffic on West Fifth Street. I also stated in order to do that, they would need to install signage on the east side of town covering traffic coming off of Flindt Drive for East Fifth and East Fourth streets. This would direct westbound truck traffic to stay on Hwy. 7 a/k/a Flindt Drive, rather than turning off onto East Fourth and East Fifth streets. It is hard to enforce truck routes without proper signage.

It was brought up that trucks need access to Methodist Manor, BVU, BVRMC and the school.  Trucks are supposed to use the shortest route from a truck route to their delivery locations. However, there are trucks for Walmart, Walgreens, Hy-Vee, grain trucks, hog trailers, Tyson reefer trucks, etc., running on West Fifth Street. Why? What is the purpose? They belong on highways 110, 7, and 71, as there is no reason for  them to be on West Fifth Street.   

It was also mentioned at the council meeting that if they enforced truck route restrictions, school buses, garbage trucks and fire trucks would not be able to use West Fifth Street. Common sense tells us these type of trucks/vehicles are allowed as there is not a posted weight limit sign and these are all essential for city operations.

I do not understand why this is such a complicated issue. I do not understand why the city administrator thinks they would have to reclassify the road according to the Federal Road Classification.  The classification does not matter as it is based on traffic counts. That same traffic will be going through Storm Lake on a different road so the count will not change. 

I definitely do not understand why the city administrator would have an attorney look into this matter. I researched this information myself through the Code of Iowa (the Code of Iowa is the statutory laws of the state). I have also contacted Jessica Felix and David Matulac of the Iowa DOT. Dave Matulac is a Traffic Operations Engineer. I told Mr. Matulac in a phone conversation what I was researching. He said that I did a thorough job and did the proper research. My information and my documentation was provided to the city council members at the council meeting Oct. 7, or provided in an email afterwards. If I can do this, the city administrator or her assistant could have done this. The money spent on an attorney would have  covered  the costs of the signs. 

I would like to know who Ms. Navratil was referring to when she stated that the sign was not approved to go back after the construction of the Hwy. 110 and 7 intersection was completed. Which DOT official was it?  I would like to talk to the DOT official who said the sign could not go back. Actually, as stated earlier, two signs were removed.

I was bothered by the statement in the Times Pilot article about the truck discussion at the last council meeting. I am referring to the comment that Meg McKeon made about speaking to a DOT representative to which the city administrator responded, “I’m sure.”  Does the city administrator realize that she works for the city council and the public? If that was the comment made, it was very disrespectful. Our council members deserve better than that.

Don Piercy, Jr., Storm Lake

Welcome to Amerika

Welcome to the new fascist country called Amerika.

Come January, the king will be anointed to rule everything. Thought police will control our public education. Free speech and the Free Press will be threatened. Women will once again be considered second-class citizens. LGBT folks will be able to vacation in Hell. Medical quackery will be legitimized. Sanctions will raise the price of everything we buy and reduce our American agricultural exports. Immigrants will be scared off, which will decimate American agricultural and housing industries.

However, macho 75-year-old white males will be needed to cut meat at Tyson. The billions of dollars spent and lives sacrificed in the last 80 years in order to make the USA the leader of the free world will be wasted in order to make way for isolationism. But wait, this has all been a bad dream... I think!

Jim Hultgren, Storm Lake

Dems need a reset

In the wake of the saddest election of my lifetime, I have many thoughts to reckon with. How can 54% of this country dismiss all sense of integrity and character that should be at the core of a person holding the highest office in the land? How can the price of gasoline swinging $2-4 a tank in either direction be the measure by which governance is working? Do we really have a nation that wants to turn back the clock on all the progress we have made on human and civil rights over the last 60 years? 

I will say that I have never felt more hopeless about our future in my life. I have never seriously considered leaving this country until now. Now before the Trump supports jump to the natural response, “Good! You don’t love this country, go ahead and leave!” I want to make perfectly clear that while I don’t agree with how you voted, and I don’t understand why truth and character no longer matter to win an election, I do empathize with the situation that made you vote the way you did. 

The truth is that we have real economic hardship in this country and the average citizen doesn’t care what the unemployment rate is or where the stock market closed as a measure of economic success. They measure it by their mounting debt and their dollar stretching less and less. But this isn’t new, this has been happening for 44 years. The reason $0.25 a gallon at the pump is such a catalyst is for many hard-working Americans, that could mean they don’t eat lunch one or two days this week. 

I get it, my generation and my children’s find it harder and harder to have any shot at the American dream and finally someone is different. He’s a tough talker, he isn’t shy about attacking someone, anyone who gets in his way. Maybe he will tear down the system that got us here? I completely understand these motivations. This is why the history of economic policy needs taught in schools. Americans need to know the regulations and protections for the American worker implemented during and after the Great Depression have been systematically dismantled since the Reagan era, which has decimated the working class. It has been gradual, but undeniable for many years. The party of Trump has always championed this move, and they continue to do so. News flash, the Dems didn’t fix it either! They toed the corporate line, improving a few social constructs hear and there to throw us a bone, but never changing the tide of the rich getting richer and the working class remaining stagnant resulting in a massive decline in our quality of life. We can afford fewer to zero family vacations. Fewer Americans are able to own a home. Many Americans continue to have crippling medical debt, and the government only kicks in after you have lost everything. Also, the majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, with little savings for a rainy day. 

When I was young, my grandfathers both worked in the same meatpacking plant in Storm Lake. One was the plant manager and was a corporate executive for Hygrade and John Morrell. The other worked on the line cutting meat every day. Both had one income households. Both had bought and paid for homes. Both had a pension and drove Lincoln Town Cars in retirement. Sure, the boss man had a little more in the bank and paid for all six kids’ educations, but they both led relatively comfortable lives. He didn’t earn 400 times what my hard-working, meat-cutting grandfather made. 

So hell yes, let’s get someone in there different who might actually change something. Sure he’s an a-hole and we wouldn’t want him in our home, but we are struggling so much, we have to set character flaws aside. This is reason 1 Trump succeeded in this election. 

Reason 2: The democrats lost this election and continue to disconnect with the American people is that they have their heads in the clouds. Democrats treat the working class like they are on a mission trip. Like they need saving by the educated left who knows what’s better for them. They don’t see us as allies to fix the broken corporate elite system and they have proven they won’t change it anyway. Working people are tired of being called dumb, you don’t win elections by trying to intellectualize reasons for a voting decision to a population you just classified as uneducated, which they hear as stupid. 

Reason 3: Truth doesn’t matter any more is the line, Democrats will say, but frankly in the average American’s eyes, it never has. Promises are rarely kept and our pockets keep getting lighter. We have been debating immigration and healthcare my entire life. They were both topics in HS debate during the early 1990s. 

Reason 4: They try to hard to be the “good guys.” Clearly that is not a winning strategy. If we want to genuinely improve the lives of Americans and win the populous, Democrats need to get real and mean. The next campaign slogan needs to be “Eat the Rich.” They need to call to task members of their own party who have gotten filthy rich while in office. They need to trash the corporate elites at every turn and unite the left and working American’s toward a common enemy. Republicans are very good at politics. They are skilled at getting struggling workers to blame their plight on others who are also struggling. The only way to correct this is French Revolution style politics, maybe without the guillotines. We can cross that bridge when we get there. 

So yes, I am scared to death of Project 2025. People I love dearly will be deeply impacted. I may not have a job as the promised eminent demise of the Department of Education will crush nearly all institutions of higher education without FASFA funding for enrollment. Working class families may never again know the joy of their first generation student crossing the stage at graduation. I fear the U.S. economy will be crushed and the dollar will no longer remain the reserve currency. I worry that our status in the world will be in rapid decline. I worry that we will spiral into fascism. However, with my deep and crushing anxiety about what the future holds, I completely understand why we got here. Democrats need a complete overhaul. 

Richard A. Diercks, Cedar Rapids

The parties switch sides

There’s been much discussion about how Trump has remade the Republican Party. This morning, I woke up thinking even bigger changes are ahead — for both parties. With their strongman elected, and apparent control of Congress, it won’t do the Republicans much good without exercising the full power of the federal government — which would seem to run in direct opposition to everything they've claimed to stand for in recent decades. Likewise, the Democrats, should Trump seek an overpowering executive, will have to fall back on states rights and reducing the power of Washington — a bit contrary to where they've been positioned heretofore. There are already hinds of this from some blue state governors, including Gavin Newsom.

So the parties reverse. It will be hilarious to see this reversal make its way to the Supreme Court. Political parties can do these things with a straight face. It will be a little harder for the justices to justify, when they show their true colors.

Jim Walters, Iowa City

Of dogs and ponies

On Sept. 20, Summit Carbon Solutions and the lowa Utilities Commission completed a lightning round of 23 CO2 pipeline informational meetings in 23 counties over 25 days.

I attended the Oelwein and Waverly meetings. A commenter in Waverly asked everyone who opposed the pipeline to stand. I stood up. And so did at least 150 other people (over 90%). Bremer County residents asked questions and shared concerns about the SCS pipeline for over three hours. I was proud of how they stood up for their communities.

These meetings were, however, simply dog and pony shows. Nothing I said, nothing anyone said, was heard by SCS or the IUC. No commissioners were present. No public record, neither transcript nor recording, was made. No commissioner, legislator, agency director... no one... will hear or remember the passionate, compelling opposition arguments that lowans poured out this summer.

When I pressed IUC staff on why no public record was made, they eventually responded with, "Yes John, we could make a public record of this, if we wanted to."

If they wanted to? I am troubled, deeply, by that response. I knew these meetings would be dog and pony shows. However, I did not realize that SCS and the IUC would treat those attending as the dogs and ponies. With no public record, let me restate for the IUC commissioners what I heard from Iowans at these meetings — lowa should reject the Summit CO2 pipeline. And with that message, I wholeheartedly agree.

John Crabtree, lowa CCI member, Oelwein

The election of Trump

Election day morning, a group of conservatives met for breakfast. None of us thought Trump would win, we thought he had run a poor campaign and made too many inflammatory statements.

How could a convicted felon, multiple pending indictments; characterized as a “fascist, a Nazi a threat to democracy,” win the Presidency.

Quite handily.

Shortly after Trump’s 2016 inauguration, where he was termed an illegitimate president, the FBI launched a two year dubious Russian-collusion investigation based on flawed and scant evidence. No charges were filed. That led many people to believe that that there was a personal political agenda against Trump by the FBI, the Justice Department, the New York Attorney General’s office, etc.

In 2020, Joe Biden, who ran as a moderate, and would bring the country together, won the presidency. He had evidence of declining mental and physical problems even then, covered up by the Democratic Party and its willing accomplices in the media, throughout four years.

Joe governed from the progressive/socialist wing of his party, wanting to become a transformative president, pushing the Green New Deal. A disastrous open border policy allowing eight million illegal immigrants into the country, many courtesy of drug cartels, and the accompanying dangerous drugs responsible for over 100,000 deaths annually. Ramping up inflation. A unpopular “woke” agenda.

A disastrous debate performance finally threw Biden under the bus, and Kamala Harris was anointed for the presidency, chosen by Biden as vice president, for her skin color and gender.

She was viewed as a a lightweight, who couldn’t answer questions.

Even though many considered Trump a threat to democracy, there are many who considered Harris a threat to the republic. She and Biden entertained packing the Supreme Court, eliminating the filibuster and the electoral college, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and speech censorship.

It is amazing that Trump expanded his voters with Hispanics, Blacks and Asian communities, higher than any Republican president.

That may reflect more on the Democratic agenda than Trump, I don’t know the answer to that.

Vic Massara, Omaha, Neb.