A Brown County judge suspended all but 18 months of that.

Gary Vigil pleaded no contest on November 2 to 14 misdemeanor counts of harassment by telecommunications device. Investigators from the Hiawatha Police say Vigil harassed numerous victims across the country. Some of the calls involved impersonating family members and calling people to ask for help.

Vigil was arrested in July of this year.

On Wednesday, Magistrate Roy Roper ordered the maximum, one-year sentence on each of the 14 counts. A defense lawyer asked for probation, but Judge Roper insisted that Vigil serve 18 months of the sentence before being released on probation. He must serve 24 months probation after his release, according to court records.

The vacant Mitchell Seed Building next door was reduced to a pile of soot, bricks and twisted beams by a fire last month. Home Style Furniture’s owner Bob Hand tells us all of his inventory is on its way out.

“Starting next week all of our furniture is going to a salvaging company,” Hand said. “It’s a company out of Oklahoma, and they will take away everything. One thing about salvage companies, it’s an all-or-none deal.”

“A lot of the product, even after a month and a half since the fire, the soft goods stuff, we still smell some smoke. The hard goods stuff, bedroom furniture, dining, end tables, probably wouldn’t be affected at all, but, the way these companies work, they either take everything or they take nothing.”

The inventory will be covered by their insurance. As to the structure of the building, which Hand and his wife Deana bought in 1999, that’s going to be up to an engineer.

“The building is secure enough for us to be in here. We have a structural engineer who has spent probably 20 to 25 hours, both inside and outside the building. He’s got some measuring devices now in the building. His biggest concern is the structure of the fire wall.”

Those measuring devices are placed along some cracks in the wall on the south side of the Home Style building, which is the wall closest to the fire next door. They will measure any possible movement of that wall. A report from the engineer is expected next week.

Deana Hand tells us they had a delivery of new inventory just after the fire struck that had to be redirected because they could not cancel the order in time.

“We have about 7,000 square feet of product stored in another warehouse,” she said. “We were just about to install thousands of dollars worth of new lighting fixtures, but that has to be put off as well.”

Next door, the lot looks like a war zone. The Mitchell Seed building, also known as Research Seeds, was reduced to massive pile of debris, with mangled structural beams poking out of the pile and workers reclaiming thousands of bricks from the rubble. It’s not yet clear when Home Style Furniture will reopen. The couple expect to hear from the engineer next week.

There have been many stories arising from downtown merchants and others about the impact of the fire at the Pioneer Building last week. That stretch of Francis Street, and the businesses along it, remains behind the chain link fence erected to keep people out of harms way. Parking and traffic patterns have been disrupted beyond the problems created by new construction and road repairs elsewhere downtown.

And the latest winner of the Traffic Box competition will need to return to St. Joseph for some touch-up work. The sci-fi themed work appears to have suffered from phaser burns.

“Galactic Perspectives” is the name of the painting on the traffic box at 5th and Francis. Teresa Fankhauser of the Allied Arts Council says they have reached out to Bradley Daniels, the artist who created the work, and he has agreed to come back and repair the damage.

But because the traffic box is inside the fenced-in area, Fankhauser says they will have to wait, along with everyone else, until the unstable wall of the Pioneer Building, and the fence, go away.

Fankhauser says they don’t want Daniels to do any work until it’s safe to do so. “The goal is, when we’re allowed back in, is to have it repaired,” she said.

“Galactic Perspectives” was selected by the council this year as the fifth work in the traffic box series. It’s only been in place for about a month.

Jonden Williams waived his preliminary hearing Tuesday on one count of statutory rape. According to court documents, the victim told police the sexual contact began when she was 13, and continued after she had a baby two years later.

In a court affidavit, investigators say the defendant fathered the child based on the victim’s written statement and some text-messaging evidence.

Associate Circuit Judge Rebecca Spencer bound Williams over for trial in circuit court. Arraignment is scheduled December 19 before Circuit Judge Patrick Robb.

Williams is currently serving a five-year sentence for his guilty plea in 2013 to charges of burglary and vehicle tampering.  Upon his release from the DOC, Williams would have to submit a $10,000 cash bond or be taken into custody in Buchanan County.

Bell Ringers in St. Joseph have raised more than 21-percent of this year’s Red Kettle Campaign goal with only 25 days left until Christmas.

The Salvation Army announced Wednesday that so far, $76,300 of its $349,000 goal has been raised.

The agency kicked off the campaign Nov. 17th.  Bell Ringers will be out at locations around town raising funds for Salvation Army efforts through Christmas Eve.  Also this year, donors have the ability to make donations by texting the word “Change” to 41444. The agency said donors can text donations in denominations of $15, $25, $50 or select Other.

The Red Kettle Campaign is The Salvation Army’s largest fund drive of the entire year. In Saint Joseph, funds help to operate the army’s services throughout the year; including the Booth Center for Homeless, the Family Store and the Corps Community Center.

Your true love can give you 12 days of books for Christmas during a special at Books Revisited.

The used book store takes donations of any books, records, tapes or videos and the money goes to supporting programs at the Rolling Hills Library.

“Almost any genre that you want, we can find for you,” Leroy Bush with Books Revisited said. “If there’s something that we don’t have that you’re wanting, we take your name and address on a little green card and then those are processed as stuff comes in. Before they go out on the floor to sale, we go through those cards and see if there’s something there that someone has requested, then we call you and and you can come in and get it.”

The 12 days of Christmas book sale starts Thursday with all merchandise, including special Christmas items, on sale. Bush said book prices start at $2 for hardbacks and $1 for paperbacks with prices going down as the days of the sale continue.

Books Revisited is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 1 to 4 p.m. on the weekends. The store is located at 1908 North Belt Highway.