Vest: Remembering the days of standing-room-only city council meetings

Back during the late 1980s, when I was serving as mayor of Iowa Falls, there were two council meetings where I felt it necessary to carry a hand gun in my briefcase. Why? Because on Dec. 10, 1986 Ralph Davis, an angry Mount Pleasant citizen had shot and killed his town’s mayor and wounded two council members during a meeting at city hall. Reason? Davis wanted reimbursement in the amount of $350 for repairs after the city sanitary sewer backed up flooding his basement. At a prior meeting the council had refused to pay.

So, wouldn’t you know it, coincidence or not, a bit after that an Iowa Falls citizens group appeared before the city council with a sanitary sewer problem.