At-Large Incumbents Reign Victorious In City Elections

Posted on November 8, 2017 by KBOE Administrator

Aside from the Mayoral race with the city elections, there was also the vote in for first and third ward, as well as the at-large candidates.

Neither Diane Ottosson, the elected candidate for first ward, nor Doug Yates, elected incumbent for third ward, were present at the courthouse last night.

The At-Large candidate race was a four way battle with two incumbents squaring off against two fresh faces in the world of city council.

Scottie Moore and Tom Walling were both seeking re-election with the city council. While young Charlie Comfort and Wyatt Russell wanted come in as a fresh face for Oskaloosa.

“But the neat thing about this year, compared to four years ago is it’s not a one topic year. And we were able to talk about a lot of different topics in depth and get that message out and get those waves made. Charlie and I kind of brought a different perspective.”

Russell choose to have a hands off campaign and really focus on friends and family. “We’re family, we’re neighbors. It was more so responding to Facebook and responding to text messages from my friends. I had a lot of people pulling for me they were talking to their friends and family and that’s what I really wanted to get back down to was the roots of the community.”

Comfort, on the other hand, did some campaigning and was active on facebook as well as posting signage throughout the city. In 2011, Comfort ran for school board and was elected, he spoke about the differences between that campaign and the run for city council.

“Not a whole lot different I mean more people voted obviously, for the city election than the school board election. I’m a little disappointed i got less votes for city council than I did for school board.”

As for the future, Comfort did not declare he would run again for city council. “I’m not going to commit myself to another campaign tonight.. I know my girlfriend is ready to have me back it’s been a long six weeks,” said Comfort. “Never say never, it’s always possible in the future.”

Russell felt the voter turnout was decent this year, “It was lower but I expected it to be lower because it wasn’t a controversial year. We didn’t have the big topics like we did four years ago. But it also made for a more fun campaign.”

Looking at statistics, 1,942 ballots were tallied for the At-Large candidates. Moore received 659 votes followed by Walling’s total of 561 votes. Rounding out the four candidates, Comfort tallied 422 ballots with his name and Russell claimed 294. *

Russell continued to speak of the incumbent candidates and how he had personal ties to them, reverting back to the idea of being family in this community. “You know Scottie and Tom are great people. Tom was my boss at one point in time at Cunningham and Scottie was my high school teacher. I know both of them and that’s the family tie right there, the roots.”

“I appreciate the support the voters gave me tonight, we move on from here. The sun still rises tomorrow and I congratulate Tom and Scottie on their victory tonight,” commented Comfort.

Russell says in two years, his ward seat, which is currently occupied by Jimenez will be up for re-election, he will be keeping his eyes on that.

“Thanks for everyone for coming out and voting. It was a great year and hopefully we will come back in two years and see if we can do something different,” stated Russell.

*Re-elected Mayor, David Krutzfeldt, speaks to fellow victor, Scottie Moore, after results.*

Note: Walling was not present at the courthouse at the time of the auditor’s announcement. Moore left shortly after results were announced. An update to this story will occur within the next few days. Stay tuned…

*All results from the municipal elections will remain unofficial until the Board of Supervisors confirms the votes.

Mayoral Election Ends With Incumbent Victory

Posted on November 7, 2017November 8, 2017 by KBOE Administrator

The city of Oskaloosa, along with the rest of Mahaska County, held their municipal city elections on November 7th. The result of the ballot race was an interesting one.

The mayoral race included incumbent Mayor David Krutzfeldt and his opponent Jeff Lorentzen. As ballots were tallied late into the evening, the numbers came in from each ward in Oskaloosa and Krutzfeldt slowly inched past Lorentzen. Eventually claiming the number one spot with 56.3{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} of the votes.

“I’m finishing up year number 8, so this is the fifth mayoral election that I’ve been in. Successful one, let’s put it that way,” said Mayor Krutzfeldt.

In total, Krutzfeldt received 105 absentee votes and 471 votes collectively from the four wards. Lorentzen received 43.5{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} of the total votes with 58 absentee votes and 387 collective votes from the four city wards. There were only two write-in votes.

Out of a growing city population of nearly 12,000 residents, a mere 1,023 weighed in on the mayoral election. According to Population.us, the city of Oskaloosa has an estimated population of 11,600. That means approximately 11.34{99cd714f394079a7f0ed2eb1518dd31342ff3ceb5b6c267c3ad8acd5b5a7d66b} of the population turned out for the vote this city election.

“If we are away from the general election there’s a lesser turn out. I believe there is some complacency where people just assume that things will just happen the way they like,” Krutzfeldt said in response to the low voter turnout. “But I understand that some folks just aren’t particularly interested or they haven’t done the research, so they don’t know who to vote for. So they stand back for that. I guess I won’t argue with them, its their own decision to make.”

It was a short six week campaign, but Mayor Krutzfeldt has one thing to say to voters that got out to the polls to vote. “Just a big thank you. Going through an election is always a humbling experience but a big thank you to the folks that expressed their confidence in me for the next two years.”

*Mayor Krutzfeldt phones incumbent Tom Walling to share the news of Walling’s victory also.*

Groundbreaking Ceremony Symbolizes New Era in Oskaloosa

Posted on April 22, 2016April 22, 2016 by KBOE Administrator

The Oskaloosa Fire Station was the site for a special groundbreaking ceremony Friday morning as crews begin work on the updated facility passed a couple months ago by the City Council.

Fire Chief Mark Neff, along with Mayor David Krutzfeldt, City Manager Michael Schrock, and City Council members Joe Caligiuri, Scottie Moore, and Aaron Ver Steeg, were on hand to symbolically dig the first holes for the new addition to the fire station.

Chief Neff is excited for the new facility to begin construction.

“Everyone here at the station is really excited,” Neff said. “The staff here has been great. It’s been a little trying at times, but the construction crews have worked hard and they’ve been working almost every day. They haven’t let the rain slow them down. Now we can actually see that something is being done. It’s just been four years that we’ve been working on the project, it’s nice to finally see stuff coming around.”

Last fall, there were some complications with the initial project’s design and the money that it would take to complete, which far exceeded the 3.195 million dollars citizens voted to allocate to the project.

Neff said that the redesign process was done carefully.

“We sat back down with the architects,” Neff explained. “I didn’t want to underbuild the building because I knew that was going to be an issue. You never want to move into something and be full right away. You need to have a little bit of room for arranging stuff.”

The project was redesigned with alternate plans in place in several locations of the model for additional items to be added if the budget allowed.

According to Neff, this worked much better and stayed within the budget.

“It actually went pretty smooth,” said Neff. “We were able to break everything down and put the bid alternates in place. We got everything that we really requested through the bid alternate plan and it worked well. They backed out some of the remodel upstairs, but we’re perfectly happy with that. It’s going to be a nice addition.”

There are plenty of key features with the new addition to the station, and there will be plenty of functions when the project is completed, but none bigger than space.

“The biggest thing is just flat square footage,” Neff explained. “It’s going to give us a lot more room getting vehicles in and out. These vehicles are not getting any smaller. In fact, we brought in a new apparatus just last week and that apparatus will not fit into the existing station. It’s about 2 inches too tall. So this new facility is going to accept that new sized apparatus and we won’t have those things to worry about.”

People in Oskaloosa can now see 2^nd Avenue closed on the block housing the fire station and a former parking lot torn up for the project, but those are not the only changes the public will be able to notice on the site in the next couple of months.

“In the next two or three months, you’ll see the footings come in,” said Neff. “You’re going to start seeing some flatwork for concrete done. Obviously the overhead lines are going to be gone. And you might even see within two months some of the steel structure and masonry start.”

The timeline for the project is about 15 months, which means completion should occur around late summer of 2017, barring any setbacks.

You can view photos of the groundbreaking ceremony on our Facebook page, “KBOE 104.9 FM.”

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