Andy Hallman

The Super Bowl is right around the corner, and millions of viewers are expected to tune in this Sunday to see the Indianapolis Colts play the New Orleans Saints. It has become customary for football fans to throw parties on the day of the Super Bowl. In the last few decades, the commercials that run during the Super Bowl have attracted nearly as much attention as the game itself.    Many residents of Washington are

The Washington City Council voted to table the third reading of an ordinance pertaining to junk vehicles at its meeting Wednesday evening. The part of the ordinance that received the most attention was the section on junk vehicles stored at towing and automotive repair businesses. The proposed ordinance states that inoperable vehicles, or ?junk vehicles,? may not be stored outside on the property of such businesses

The Washington Cable Committee met Tuesday afternoon to discuss adding programming to the local access cable channel in the city that would include, among other things, televising city council meetings.    Lee Grassley, a representative of the cable company Mediacom, presented cost estimates of the equipment the city would need if it wanted to televise council meetings or do any other kind of public access

The state Legislature is in the process of revamping a number of government programs, and one of the reorganization measures would affect community empowerment programs, including the Washington and Henry County empowerment programs.    Tasha Beghtol, the program coordinator for the empowerment programs in Washington and Henry counties, said the Iowa Senate approved a bill Monday that would incorporate the

The Washington City Council will consider a proposal to acquire 63 acres from John and Jan Berdo near the airport for the purpose of building a new runway at its next meeting Wednesday night in the former library.     Airport Commission Chairman Mike Roe said the runway at the airport is 50 years old and badly needs to be replaced. He said that modern Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations require

The phones at the Washington dispatch center have been ringing off the hook. At least, that?s what it seems like compared to how many calls the center received a few years ago. Since 2002, the number of calls received by the dispatch center has risen 45 percent.    Some towns in the county have seen a larger increase in calls than others. The folks in Riverside more than doubled the number of 911 calls they made

Washington County Treasurer Jeff Garrett presented his budget to the Washington County Board of Supervisors on Friday and asked for a 35-cent per hour raise for his two clerks. Garrett also employs three deputies, two of whom earn 80 percent of his salary and one who makes 75 percent. Garrett did not ask the board for raises for any of the deputies.    Garrett remarked that he wants to keep his clerks? hourly wage

The Washington Emergency Management Commission voted unanimously to recommend an assessment of $1.37 per person for their 2010-11 budget at its meeting Thursday night at the sheriff?s office. The assessment is the same as it was for the 2009-10 budget. The public hearing on the commission?s budget was set for Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. at the sheriff?s office.    The commission discussed what would happen next year after the

Washington County officials completed four days of emergency preparedness exercises Thursday, including exercises for dealing with a large H1N1 influenza pandemic. The county entities participating were the Washington County Hospital, public health, the sheriff?s office, environmental health, and Emergency Management Coordinator Larry Smith. On Thursday, a group of people from each entity gathered at the sheriff?s

The Washington City Council held its first work session to study the 2010-2011 city budget Wednesday night in the former library building. The marathon session, which lasted approximately four hours, included presentations from nine city department heads. The council members said they would like to have another work session in two weeks. Parks    Parks Supervisor Tim Widmer spoke about the state of disrepair the

The Washington Public Library was recently rewarded for its energy efficiency with a $28,500 rebate from Alliant Energy. The library was designed to consume less energy than traditional buildings of its size, even though the energy savings typically involved spending more money on upfront capital. For these efforts, Alliant Energy promised to cover some of the costs of construction once it verified the energy saving

A steady rain Saturday night did not stop Washington?s residents from getting out and enjoying ?Slow Down and Savor Washington.? People ducked in and out of six downtown restaurants that offered $3 specials that were unique to each restaurant. The six participating restaurants were Panda Palace, Dino?s Pizza and Steakhouse, Frontier Family Restaurant, La Casa Grande, Dodici?s Shop and The Coffee Corner.    

The downtown area of Washington will see even more remodeling this spring thanks to a grant that was recently awarded to Bodywrx Fitness to restore its original storefront. Bodywrx received $20,500 in the form of a HUD Challenge Grant from the Iowa Department of Economic Development.    The Bodywrx rehabilitation project was one of 14 projects that received money from the HUD Challenge Grant program. All of the

The E911 Board and the Communications Commission each held a meeting in the former library in Washington Thursday night. The two groups were going to have a joint meeting to discuss plans for building a new dispatch center, but the engineer who would have presented the plans, Leonard Koehnen of St. Paul, was not able to attend because of the weather.    Thursday?s meeting was the first time the E911 Board had a

Many college students take a vacation during their week off from classes in mid-March. Washington resident Alissa Jewell, who graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in December, will be going on a trip in March, but it won?t be a vacation. Jewell, the daughter of Mike and Deborah Jewell, will travel with a group of 22 people to a poor village in Kenya called Kwambekenya. The group will volunteer their time