Good morning, Oelwein area readers. It’s Monday, Oct. 24, 2022. Today’s 7 local news nuggets at 7 a.m. include demolition of the Plaza, good news about Huskies academics, concern about school bus seat belts and more.

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1. WET WEATHER FINALLY — Today, rain is likely, mainly after 2 p.m. Under cloudy skies, the temperature will rise to around 70 by 11 a.m. before falling to around 61 during the remainder of the day. Breezy, with a south wind 16 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 32 mph. Tonight, rain is again likely, mainly before 1 a.m. Low around 41. West wind 6 to 9 mph. (Extended Forecast)

2. Oelwein City Council to talk Plaza demolition and more at tonight’s meeting tonight — The council will meet in City Hall for its regular business meeting at 6 p.m. tonight. Click here for the agenda, which includes considering accepting the $117,504.90 bid from Mätt Construction, Inc. for the Plaza Demolition Project.

3. Oelwein academics a cause for celebration — At last week’s School Board meeting, Superintendent Josh Ehn reviewed district academic goals to be met by 2025 in English language arts, math, and science compared to performance through 2022. ELA and Science both saw gains in 2022, math improved over 2021, but was behind where it was in 2019. ELA and math were short of their pacing goals for 2022, but science did make its pacing goal for 2022 (pacing goals are the goals set to be on pace to meet the 2025 overarching goals). He termed the academic results as a huge win and cause for huge celebration, the meeting minutes say

4. A problem with school bus belts — At last week’s Oelwein School Board meeting, bus driver Jake Blitsch talked about being assigned the new bus with the seatbelts on it. According to the meeting minutes, he sees many pitfalls with the seatbelt policy that was later approved in the meeting. He said it’s going to be tough to enforce children wearing the seatbelts and drive simultaneously. He also mentioned the new bus drives roughly and the seats are tight (especially when coats and backpacks come into play in colder months).

5. First time since 2015 — The Oelwein Boys Cross Country team’s capturing of the North Iowa Cedar League regular season title was the first conference title of any sport since 2015.

6. Burning leaves — The next open burning date in Oelwein is 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20. (Click here for the rules)

7. COURT NEWS — Drug convictions in Fayette County lead to probation. Sumner man sent to prison in Chickasaw County and Bremer County sex abuse cases.