Money on tap for Job Corps; TV tower still down

Courier Editorial Board

July 01, 2008 12:33 am

— We had good news and bad news in Saturday’s Courier. The good news is that Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is working hard to push through a bill that allocates $25 million to locate a Job Corps site at the Indian Hills Community College airport campus.
The Job Corps Center has been in the works for some time, and many Ottumwa residents have been asking about its status.
Job Corps programs are aimed at young people considered at-risk. It provides no-cost education and vocational training programs to help them find a career.
In addition to helping the growing number of youth considered at-risk in the counties served by Indian Hills, the Job Corps program will provide about 120 full-time jobs that also are needed in southeast Iowa.
When the money comes through, the plans are to begin construction of a Job Corps site at Ottumwa Industrial Airport with the goal of opening the facility in late 2010.

The bad news — well, maybe it’s more bothersome than bad — is that many television viewers are still without some Iowa TV stations. Residents who want a couple of stations for free had received service from an OATS antenna tower that has been down for more than three years.
Every time we do an update story, it seems to be the same old story — that local OATS volunteers are waiting for the company under contract to send workers to put the tower back up.
One of the problems, said Glenn Hughes, president of the Ottumwa Area Translator System, is that no time element was inserted into the contract. Therefore, work on the tower has not been completed, and people who rely on that tower to get basic TV stations remain unhappy.
We can’t blame them.
The tower served a population that received network services. With a TV antenna, they could get broadcasts relayed from the OATS tower and receive CBS and NBC stations. Since it’s been down, they’ve been out of luck for those stations and only able to get Ottumwa stations that run ABC and Fox programming.
Time is becoming an issue, Hughes said, because OATS could lose its licensing. He doesn’t want that to happen.
A translator tower also enables TV watchers who don’t want to purchase a converter box or new television set when digital operation begins next February to receive signals.
It seems like an easy fix since it would only take a week or so to finish installing the new translator tower.
It also seems like it could and should be done as soon as possible. Dickerson Antenna and Tower of Hamilton, Ill., needs to get this job done right now.