MASON CITY – A North Iowa man was stopped by police early Sunday morning and discovered to be intoxicated and in possession of drugs.
According to police, Gunnar Quentin Clark, age 18 of Britt, was stopped for an undisclosed reason at about 1:15 AM at North Federal Avenue and 17th Street. He was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and operating while intoxicated.
Clark pled not guilty to the drug possession charge and was released from the Cerro Gordo County Jail. He awaits an August 11, 2014 court date on the drug possession charge and a February 28, 2014 court date on the drunk driving charge.
SUBJECT IS INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
Now here’s what the headline would read if North Iowa communities actually gave a crap about their generations of young people:
BRITT MAN PERFORMS BRILLIANTLY IN LATEST INDEPENDENT MOVIE TO BE SHOWN AT LOCAL THEATRES
or
BRITT MAN CONVERTS AUTOMOBILE TO ELECTRIC CAR AND BEATS STOCK CAR ON THE QUARTER MILE AT NORTH IOWA FAIRGROUNDS
or
BRITT MAN STARTS MEDICAL MARIJUANA PHARMACY / COFFEE SHOP
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There are hundreds of different headlines I’d like to read that are possible if stiff, rigid Iowans would start being more positive and less hardass on the next generations.
@Philly-you are well aware that laws are there to protect the citizens. Without them this would be a sad world indeed. That freedom you like so much would not be worth a penny without those laws to protect people. This is not the first time and it probably will not be the last time that this guy has been arrested. You would think people would wake up after the first time and figure out they should obey the laws. If you don’t like the laws contact your law makers and get it changed. That is if you are in the majority. Your other option is to move somewhere where you like it more. Just saying.
I was referring to community opportunities BEFORE the youth end up resorting to drugs. Kids are neglected in Iowa. Everyone knows that.
Kids have never had more opportunity in the history of mankind than they do today. They also have the lowest drive in history as well. Youth is truly wasted on the young.
Totally disagree with you on this one. The kids today have more opportunity than ever before but a lot just squander it. They are used to having everything given to them and it tell. They have very little sense of responsibility. Not all of them of course, but a lot more than there should be. To much money and to many drugs.
I guess none of you people have been out of North Iowa in awhile. Go up to Minneapolis and the suburbs and see all the activities and programs offered to keep children and young adults busy. Take a trip down to Iowa City even and you’ll feel a heck of a lot more going on. You are mistaking idle time for constructive activity. I’m not saying kids should be totally left alone…I’m saying the adults in this region haven’t done all that much to give them a reason NOT to hang out with their friends and drink and do drugs. If you as a parent are gruff with them, abusive, always working, never have the time…they are inevitably going to do what all frustrated, disoriented kids do…they are going to meet up with others of the same and congeal with one another over “how sucky it all is”, while drinking a beer, and then eventually smoking some pot, and maybe even doing a line of meth or coke. That’s how it works. You’re all too stupid to know the trajectory.
And LVS’s dream solution of beating all the kids into submission and sticking them on a factory line isn’t the solution either. I recently had some auto work done and my mechanic has a high school age boy, and I felt real bad for this kid. I saw how dad expected so much from him, and kicked him around as his auto shop assistant. I think he treated the dog better. Think of how many kids around Iowa have that type of neglected hurtful upbringing. What’s worse about it was I heard the kid trying to tell his dad that 4 seniors were seriously bullying him and he didn’t know what to do. The kid was only a freshman. The dad said some wisecrack about not being a pussy. It’s not a good prognosis out there in my view. These kids are forlorn and forgotten. Kevin Pals and company only want to make more money off them when they come through the hatch. Something’s gotta give.
Do you guys understand now why I hate the City Councils of these towns so much? They are the supposed leaders who are supposed to be leading and designing our cities into the future and into a better life, but they sit and do nothing, while kids are processed and raped by the Department of Corrections. They simply don’t care. Nelly Crabb, Bookie, and their cronies on the Council DON’T CARE. I tried. And the abusive, stupid ass population voted to keep things the same way.
Kids will ALWAYS hang out with other kids and complain about nothing to do. Hell they even do it on twitter and facebook and via texting now. Kids have TONS of resources to do tons of things, but they are mostly (greater than 50%) lazy and lethargic and think that someone needs to do it FOR them and the world OWES them. Same story, different decade.
I dispute your assertion that kids have tons of resources to do tons of things. You’re mistaking the endless world of the internet as activity…it’s not. If you look around the town…the physical town (pull your head out of your laptop), you’ll see pretty much the same barren frozen wasteland of when we grew up in the seventies. Sure there maybe more strip mall places and stores and restaurants, but that’s NOT a future for kids. That’s just a place to work low wage service jobs and eat or shop.
IN order to get Mason City / Clear Lake up to speed with the rest of progressive America it’s going to take constructive activities and technical training schools that focus on excellence and current trends. I’ve been following the Olympics lately and seeing how dedicated some of these parents are who see their children training to be the best. Tell me right now if someone in North Iowa wanted to be an Olympian, where are the facilities to train? Where can a young person put their energy into something to get good? It was only recently they’ve been putting in skate parks in small towns. It took a helluva lot of lobbying and stress just to get city authorities to accept those.
Everything seems to be a struggle, and that’s what causes the exodus of talent, and the decline and frustration of those stuck…leading to the eventual arrests and buildup of “The Record”. I’m really having trouble understanding how people can be so unintelligent to NOT see all of this as clearly as I do. It’s weird.
People need fun and technically interesting things to do with their time. A “Super Enriched” Environment is what Behavior Scientists call it. Does Mason City have one?
NO.
@Philly-You gave an example of one kid (who is having to work) What about the rest of them with their smart phones, X-Boxes, Computers and all the other toys they sit in their home playing and turning their brains into mush. Most have no work ethic because Mommy and Daddy give them everything they want. They get all the toys, cars and all the money they need without doing one damn thing to earn them. It is no wonder they have no respect for anything and do not try to tell me this doesn’t happen, I see it all the time. They are mostly spoiled brats who just want everything without paying for it.
Yeah, but the conditions were deplorable. We worked on the car all day long until we had to pick him up from school, then the kid joined us in the garage. The mechanic wanted to keep the doors closed all the time because of the heat, and it was so hard to breathe in there I had to keep going outside…eventually I insisted a door be kept cracked. He would start the car and let it run for 15 minutes at a time, spray brake cleaner, weld, spray undercoating. I mean I almost passed out a couple times, and the guy acted like it was nothing, and his son was choking too and waving smoke around after the welding. I felt bad for the dog even. We got the job done, but man oh man…day in and day out like he does?
That’s not my idea of anything constructive or healthy. The kid may be learning about auto mechanics but he’s also doing it in a very toxic environment that will eventually take its toll on both of them…including the dog.
Do you think that’s okay for people to be forced into or subjected to?
Don’t get me wrong. This mechanic knew his stuff, and we did a butt load of work on the car and fixed a lot of issues for a really good price, and I appreciate the end result, but I would at least put in some safety measures like ventilation when you’re doing that all the time, especially when you have kids and they are involved with you. It’s one thing if you don’t mind shooting your own health all to hell, but to do it to someone under your care isn’t right. It was brutally cold out, and I wasn’t dressed well, so I had to keep going into the garage to warm up. I had a choice: Freeze to death in the arctic tundra or choke to death on carbon monoxide and all the other toxic fumes in that small garage. It was a balancing act, and something I won’t repeat anytime soon. I like to do things mechanical and I love working on small cars but be smart about it and take some precautions. It would have gone a long way just to run a fan blowing it out the window…but he didn’t even do that. We were stuck and I lost a year or two off my life because of that day.
Plenty of frozen water you could curl on. Not everybody want to be an Olympian though. Some people what to do more than be good at one sport. To do that they need to figure out what that is and go after it. Most of them won’t. They will sit on their ass and complain about not having this or that or not being able to do this or that. Information to do just about anything someone wants to do is pretty much at their fingertips. Drive on the other hand is in short supply. Intellectual curiosity is pretty much dead and will be buried right next to “the ability to spell and communicate” with it’s friend “the dignity of working hard to earn something over having it given to you”.