The Vision Iowa Board this morning awarded grants to four community attraction projects around the state including one in Shelby County. The Harlan Community School District was awarded $200,000 for the renovation project to Merrill Field. Superintendent Justin Wagner along with other school officials and Harlan City Administrator Terry Cox and Shelby County Supervisor Steve Kenkel received word from the Vision Iowa Board around 10am in Des Moines. Wagner says the project means a lot not only to the school but the Harlan Community.

Wagner says “The overall project is to bring the current complex ADA compliance, to replace existing structures that have been there since the 1970’s. We have been frugal with how we have used the complex but it is a very high frequency used complex. Not for the school district but more importantly we have 80 activities in the community.”

The total renovation project for the Merrill Field Complex is estimated at $1.528 million and before the CAT grant today, the Harlan Community Education Foundation had raised $1.337 million. Now that the estimated cost has been raised, Wagner says work will start in the spring.

Wagner says “We’re hoping to have the project start March 1st. We are hoping to get some out of season costs to save some money. Specifications are being written and we knew we needed those whether we were move ahead or not. So we are hoping by March 1st that we start the renovation project as a whole.”

Other communities receiving grant money from Vision Iowa were the City of Manchester, Putnam Museum of History and Natural Science in Davenport and the Des Moines Performing Arts.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)

The Atlantic Police Department reports the arrest on Tuesday of 38-year old Patricia Mundorf. The Atlantic woman was booked into the Cass County Jail on two counts of Identity Theft.

An Atlantic man was sentenced Tuesday to more than 3.5-years in prison for possessing a stolen firearm. U-S District Court Judge John Jarvey handed down the 46-month term for 42-year old  Gregory Allen Jennings,  and ordered Jennings to serve three years of supervised release when he completes his imprisonment.

On November 12th (2013), Jennings pled guilty to knowingly possessing a stolen firearm. The charge was the result of an investigation into firearms which were stolen from a vehicle in Atlantic, Iowa, in January of 2013. The investigation revealed that Jennings had received the firearm shortly after it was stolen, and was attempting to sell the firearm when it was located by law enforcement.

The investigation was conducted by the Atlantic, Iowa, Police Department, and the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the case was prosecuted by the U.S.
Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa

Democrat Staci Appel — a candidate in Iowa’s third congressional district — says it’s time to raise the nation’s minimum wage.  “I think working families have gone without an increase in the minimum wage since 2009,” Appel says. “And, you know, 71 percent of Americans favor increasing the minimum wage.”

The national minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour. Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin is pushing his fellow senators to vote to raise the minimum wage to 10-dollars-and-10 cents. Appel says Congressman Tom Latham — the Republican Appel hopes to face next November — should join Harkin’s effort. “I think that he should join me in supporting it for the American people and the people of Iowa,” Appel says.

Appel served one term in the state senate and in 2007 she voted to raise the state’s minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, which at the time was higher than the national minimum wage. “My record of supporting raising the minimum wage is extremely important and I believe it was a clear choice of what to do at that time,” Appel says, “and I wish that we had been forward and raised it even further.”

Appel supports the concept of tying the minimum wage to a yearly inflation factor, like the annual “cost of living” adjustment for Social Security payments. A spokesman for Latham’s congressional campaign was not available for comment this morning (Wednesday).

In 2007 Latham voted to raise the federal minimum wage to its current level, $7.25 an hour. Critics say raising the minimum wage harms entry level and part-time workers, especially teenagers, as businesses will cut back hours or lay off workers. President Obama has called for raising the national minimum wage to nine dollars an hour. Earlier this summer, workers at fast food restaurants in a few U.S. cities staged protests, calling for a minimum wage of 15 dollars an hour. Twenty-one states — where about half the U.S. population lives — have passed laws raising state minimum wage rates above the nation’s. Appel faces Gabriel De La Cerda in next June’s Democratic Primary in the fourth congressional district.

(Radio Iowa)

The Mills County Sheriff’s office reports a Shenandoah man was arrested this past weekend for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. 44-year old Matthew Dean Hughes was taken into custody for OWI/3rd offense at around 6:50-p.m. Saturday, following a traffic stop on Highway 34. Hughes was brought to the Mills County Jail and held on $6,000 bond.