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Pocahontas: Jobs to fill

Housing development expansion planned; Brand FX completed a major expansion project

-Messenger photo by Peter Kaspari
Downtown Pocahontas is shown in this photo. The city recently started a program that will help refurbish storefronts and facades of businesses in town.

POCAHONTAS — Recent expansion in Pocahontas has meant that there are jobs available in town, as well as new places for people to live.

Eric List, Pocahontas city administrator, said last year, Brand FX completed a major expansion project.

According to its website, Brand FX manufactures truck bodies.

“They moved a majority of their manufacturing from Texas up to here,” List said.

That, in turn, has created a number of job opportunities that need to be filled.

-Messenger photo by Peter Kaspari
A display inside the Pocahontas Public Library shows an acrostic poem listing the services available at the library.

“Right now our biggest want and need is we have jobs and we need some people to fill them,” List said.

Besides new jobs, he added that the city is looking at expanding Prairie Estates, a housing development in town that was built around 2006-2007.

The city is in discussions to add more lots to the development.

“We haven’t finalized how many additional lots we’re adding,” he said. “It looks like a minimum of eight or maybe upwards of 20, depending on what the layout will look like.”

With new jobs available in town, List said the city is also looking at making existing buildings look fresh and up-to-date.

“The city just started a new grant program for businesses within the town for signage and facade grants,” he said.

The grants, which are 50-50, are capped at certain amounts. It provides $500 per sign and $5,000 per facade.

“We want to see if we can help or assist an existing business to put a facelift to keep beautification and improvements continuing,” List said.

He added that other towns across the state have done something similar, and Pocahontas decided to adopt the practice as well.

“We just started it the first of the year and we already have people interested,” he said, adding that it’s possible this project will inspire other business owners to make improvements to the physical appearance of their buildings as well.

Infrastructure projects are a major part of the city’s agenda in 2019.

Recently, the city did a sewer system rehab project, which involved cleaning lines and trying to address ongoing issues within the system.

“In phase two, we are actually going to be doing a pretty big retrofit of the plant, the actual water treatment plant,” he said, which includes adding ultraviolet light.

There are more projects as well. List said the city will be replacing a well in town, and recently received approval from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to get the project done.

“We’re constantly doing some upgrades and repairs to the electric system to make sure that stays at the level of service we are expected to provide,” he said.

Elsewhere in Pocahontas, discussions are underway about the possibility of building a new jail.

The current Pocahontas County Jail is located on the top floor of the 95-year-old Pocahontas County Courthouse, and according to Sheriff Brian Larsen, it’s outdated.

Larsen said the jail is as old as the courthouse, which was built in 1923, and is not able to properly handle the needs of modern-day inmates.

“It’s old,” Larsen said last summer. “It’s really a safety issue, not only for the inmates, but for my staff. It just really doesn’t work for us anymore.”

The biggest concern the sheriff has about the jail is getting unruly inmates under control.

“If we have somebody giving us a bad time, somebody that isn’t compliant at all — which we see a lot more of recently — there’s nothing I can do about it,” he said. “I can’t separate them from the other inmates.”

There’s also no protection for jail staff, since all the cell doors have openings in them.

“If a jailer walks by, an inmate can throw whatever on that jailer,” Larsen said. “It’s happened in the past and it’ll continue to happen.”

A committee has been formed that is comprised of Larsen, the county auditor and two supervisors. They have begun the process of getting the new jail built.

Larsen said he doesn’t have a timeline in place for the jail’s construction.

“I want to do it right,” he said. “I want to take my time and I want the best value for the county, but it needs to be something that’ll work for us, too.”

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