Andy Hallman

The city of Fairfield is taking a new approach to sewer repairs.Until recently, the public works department has been dispatched to fix a break in the city?s sewer line. That is not going to happen anymore. On Oct. 14, those responsibilities passed to the wastewater treatment facility.The change has required the wastewater employees to undergo additional training, something they will continue throughout the ...

A new face is greeting youngsters at the Fairfield Public Library, and it?s that of children?s librarian Afton Hallauer.Hallauer, of DeKalb, Ill., has been on the job since Oct. 1 and already feels at home in her new position and new town. One of her roles as children?s librarian is to help children find reference materials for their homework. She also connects kids to leisure books she thinks they?ll enjoy ...

The Fairfield City Council agreed to hold a public hearing on an amendment to an ordinance that would allow bowhunting of deer in select parts of town.The public hearing will be at the council?s next meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 28.The vote was 6-1 in favor of holding the public hearing. John Revolinski voted against the motion. After the vote, a councilor asked Revolinski why he voted against a public hearing, and ...

The Fairfield RAGBRAI executive committee understands the serious threat the emerald ash borer poses to the ash trees in Fairfield.That is why the committee gave the Fairfield Park and Recreation Foundation $6,150 at Monday night?s city council meeting. The money will go toward purchasing trees to replace the ash trees in Central Park that could be lost to the emerald ash borer in the next three to five years. ...

LOCKRIDGE ? A house about 6 miles north of Lockridge caught fire Monday night and kept firefighters busy for hours.The house was at 3140 160th Street between Lockridge and Brighton. Jeremy Loving, Lockridge fire chief, said his department received the fire call at about 9:30 p.m. Monday. Firefighters responded and saw the fire had touched about 10 percent of the house and was raging strong.The fire was doing ...

The Fairfield City Council will consider whether to allow hunters to kill deer in town at its next meeting Monday.The Fairfield Police Department has proposed opening a short deer season to take place in late December and early January to hunt deer in select locations on the west side and south side of town.If approved, the hunts would be confined to bows and would occur in three places: on ground owned by the ...

John Harper remembers the date well: Aug. 18, 1979.What Harper has no memory of is what transpired the following eight weeks. On that summer day, more than 34 years ago, Harper was knocked off his moped and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was in a coma for two months, and when he awoke he was only faced with more challenges. Harper had to re-learn how to talk and how to walk.At the time, Harper was 15 ...

Imagine cooking a pizza from start to finish in just two minutes.Although it sounds impossible, the feat is within reach for a homemade cob oven at Maharishi School for the Age of Enlightenment. The base of the oven is made of reclaimed concrete blocks and the body is made of a mixture of sand, clay and straw in the shape of a dome.The oven was built by the Maharishi School senior class last school year and ...

A Fairfield resident has organized a fundraiser for kidney disease.Jami Kaelin is one of the two women to organize the Southeast Iowa Kidney Walk, which is Saturday in Ottumwa. This is the second year of the Southeast Iowa Kidney Walk, which raised more than $5,000 its first year in 2012. Kaelin and her co-worker Kristin Wilson are working hard to make the event even more successful than before.The fundraising ...

The Fairfield Middle School wants its students to not only think outside the box, but also outside the classroom walls.This fall, the middle school has begun a class that encourages eighth-graders to design projects that help their community. The teachers thought the class was such a great idea they decided to call it, ?Idea.?Idea is a class eighth-graders may take during sixth hour if they do not need additiona...

Washington Elementary School students and faculty dressed up as hillbillies and lumberjacks Tuesday as the school district celebrates homecoming with dress-up days all this week. The dress-up days for Washington the rest of the week are: today is Sports Day; Thursday is student picture day, so the students are asked to dress as teachers while the teachers dress as kids; Friday is Spirit Day, when students don ...

Fairfield residents can expect their sewer bill to jump 20 percent in the next couple of months.The city of Fairfield passed the third and final reading of an ordinance at its meeting Sept. 23 to increase sewer fees. The vote was unanimous as all seven councilors voted in favor of it. The councilors are Daryn Hamilton, John Revolinski, Martha Rasmussen, Connie Boyer, Jessica Ledger-Kalen, Tony Hammes and Michael ...

Jefferson County Attorney Tim Dille will not press charges relating to the death of David Bittner because he believes Bittner died as a result of a justifiable homicide.Bittner, 46, of rural Mount Pleasant, was shot in the abdomen while at a residence in Lockridge on Sept. 4. Dille said Bittner was shot by his son, Steven, who fired a shotgun slug into David after David had broken through a locked door and ...

(This story has been revised since its original publication) Delta Zeta sorority has filed a lawsuit against a house in Fairfield for allegedly falsely advertising itself as a Delta Zeta chapter.The house is on Fourth Street near Maharishi University of Management. According to the Associated Press, the national Delta Zeta organization, based in Oxford, Ohio, claims the house in Fairfield is luring young women ...

Employers in Fairfield are being asked to complete a survey about the housing needs of their employees.The survey is the result of a joint effort between the city of Fairfield, the Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce and the Fairfield Economic Development Association. The three entities plan to share the survey data with developers to encourage them to build in the area. They also plan to use the data to form ...