News

Upgrades to county IT infrastructure

Montgomery County’s IT director Jim Scott is continuing to make upgrades to the county’s IT infrastructure.Scott was in attendance at the regular Montgomery County Board of Supervisors meeting April 5. Scott gave an update on some of the projects he’s been working on to streamline and improve the...

Absentee ballots available for primary election

Montgomery County voters interested in voting absentee for the June 7 Primary Election may file requests for absentee ballots with the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office.Due to recent legislation, the time period to request absentee ballots has been reduced from 120 days to 70 days. The new...

DUR board discusses permanent file storage options

The Red Oak Downtown Urban Renewal Board tackled a light agenda at the regular monthly meeting April 6.The DUR Board had no grant requests up for first round approval. DUR Chairman Roger Vial said based on the board’s current budget status, a hiatus in grant requests wasn’t necessarily a bad...

Red Oak City Council approves minor hike to water and sewer rates

see a slight increase to their water and sewer rates in their upcoming bills.At the meeting on April 4, the council discussed the ordinance amendments for rate increases. City administrator Brad Wright said the water rate had a proposed 2% increase over last year due to the increased cost of...

Attic discovery leads to beginnings of Red Oak football

Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series on how four photographs found in a local attic tells the history of football in Red Oak. The next installment will be in the April 13 edition of The Red Oak Express. If you are like many local residents, you would never connect Red Oak football to a...

Supervisors still looking into hiring carbon pipeline inspection firm

The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors received its first bid for inspection services for the proposed Summit Carbon Pipeline project.At the March 29 meeting, the supervisors heard a presentation from Luis Leon, the owner and principal engineer of L.T. Leon Associates Inc., out of Des Moines....

DeJear visits Red Oak

Deidre DeJear, the presumptive Democratic nominee for Iowa Governor, paid a visit to Red Oak on March 29 and met with potential voters at the Firehouse Restaurant. DeJear spoke about some of the issues she’s campaigning on, and took questions from voters in attendance. Learn more about DeJear at...

Paint Iowa Beautiful program awards Essex free paint

Diamond Vogel and Keep Iowa Beautiful announced the grant awards for the 2022 Paint Iowa Beautiful program. The program provides free paint to a wide variety of public service projects throughout Iowa.Locally, the City of Essex will receive a grant for painting the Historical Opera House in the...

Absentee ballot request period opens

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate announced the absentee ballot request period for the June 7 primary election is now open. Voters wishing to cast their ballot through the mail can submit their request for an absentee ballot. Iowa law allows a 70-day request period for absentee ballots.County...

Survey collecting information on deer and furbearers

Staff with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) are currently conducting their annual nighttime spring spotlight surveys across the state, collecting information on Iowa’s deer and furbearer populations.The annual survey is conducted until mid-April in each county, beginning an hour after...