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Keep up-to-date with Fox News Radio, Radio Iowa, Brownfield & the Iowa Agribusiness Networks!
(Atlantc, Iowa) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors, Tuesday (Today) held a Public Hearing on the published, Fiscal Year, 2023 Cass County Budget, during which there were no comments from the public. The Board then voted to adopt the resolution as proposed. The Board also acted on a Resolution to reduce by half, the percentage of Elected Officials compensation that had been recommended by the Cass County Compensation Board, effective July 1, 2022.
Board Chair Steve Baier noted the revised amounts.
Approved salaries (which are also less than what the Compensation Board recommended), will be as follows:
Supervisor Mark O’Brien was in disagreement with the Supervisor’s Board Chair compensation…he said it should be more, wanted to increase it, based on the responsibilities that come with the position. The others agreed, but Supervisor Steve Green said “The law doesn’t allow us to go higher.” Green and Baier advised the issue should be “left alone.” Supervisor Hartkopf reminded the public that neither the Supervisors nor the Compensation Board have a say over the final outcome, because the State regulates some areas.
In other business, the Supervisors approved a Resolution to use ARPA funds to purchase election equipment. Deputy Auditor Sheri Karns explains…
The cost is $108, 624, with no maintenance or annual license fees included. The old equipment will be included in a trade-in deal. Board Chair Baier said in previous discussions, it was agreed purchasing election equipment would be a good use of the recovery act funds the County has received. The new election machines will not be available for the June Primary, and it’s questionable if they will be available for the November General Election.
The Atlantic Police Department reports two separate arrests took place, Sunday:
(Elk Horn, Iowa) – The Exira-EHK School Board, Monday evening, approved renewing an agreement for a School Resource Office (SRO), paid for through a grant. Superintendent Trevor Miller…
Miller said also, the District will hold a Public Hearing on the Budget April 11th. In other business…
He said “Financially, our District’s working well and our staff’s really working hard” in this fourth-quarter of the school year. The Board approved also, salaries for Support Staff and Administration.
(Anita, Iowa) – There will be a change in location for Kindergarten students in the CAM School District, beginning with the 2022-23 School Year. Their action came during the Board’s regular monthly meeting, Monday (March 14).
That’s Superintendent Paul Croghan, who says also, there were about a half-dozen or so people who spoke about that topic and others.
He said discussions with regard to any future changes that may be necessary, are expected as the school year continues and the new school year begins.
The CAM School Board also approved contracts for the 2022-23 school year., and the proposed ’22-’23 School Calendar.
They also discussed the 22-23 Budget.
A public hearing on the Calendar and Budget will be held during the Board’s meeting next month. The school board also accepted the resignation of Art teacher Dana Kunze, half-time physical education instructor, Jennifer Weisenborn, Middle School Education instructors, Danika Kentner and Samantha Rosenbeck, and Ag Instructor, and FFA Advisory Gary Miller.
(Radio Iowa) – Volunteer registration opens today (Tuesday) for this summer’s edition of Iowa Project AWARE, the 19th annual river cleanup event. Coordinator Nina Marquardt says this year’s effort will be on the West Fork of the Des Moines River, running July 10th through the 15th. “We’re starting up in Petersburg, Minnesota and ending a little bit south of West Bend, Iowa, so we’re going to end it in Palo Alto County,” Marquardt says, “and the route will cover 61 miles of the West Fork including the newly-designated West Fork of the Des Moines Water Trail which is really exciting.”
Project AWARE, which stands for A Watershed Awareness River Expedition, brings in volunteers from across the state to pull garbage out of the waterway, which improves water quality and increases the recreational potential while heightening community awareness. “They’re in canoes so they’ll be paddling along and then we’ll have some people that will stay on land, mostly our staff, and they will be sorting the recyclables and the scrap metal,” Marquardt says. “We recycle about 78% of what we get out of the water.” 
Volunteers of all ages can take part one day, all six days, or any amount in between. Educational programs are held nightly ranging in topics from geology, ecology and natural resources to local history and archeology. Since 2003, more than five-thousand volunteers have removed nearly 460 tons of trash from rivers around Iowa, cleaning up more than 12-hundred river miles. “Last year, there was a tractor that we used for scrap metal,” Marquardt says. “One of our longtime volunteers actually used the money from the scrap metal to restock the river with walleye for the walleye club.”
The volunteers always pull a host of items from the rivers, from tires and refrigerators to bowling pins and beer cans. Learn more and sign up to volunteer at: www.iowaprojectaware.org
(Radio Iowa) – The Federal Reserve meets this week and is expected to raise the interest rate to try to cool down inflation — and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the move is long overdue. “They’re about a year late, at least eight months late, realizing how bad inflation was going to be,” Grassley says. When the economy slows, the Federal Reserve typically lowers interest rates to spur growth. The rate has been around zero since March of 2020. All signals point to a quarter of a percent increase. “Inflation’s a very important issue to Iowa families because I hear about it all the time from Iowa families,” Grassley says, “so I’m glad that The Fed is finally waking up.”
Grassley supports not only the rate hike, but the expected move to start reducing the amount of bond debt the Federal Reserve took on as a way to spur the economy during the pandemic. “They have ballooned their balance sheet from $4 trillion prior to the pandemic to about $9 trillion and they need to back that off,” Grassley says. “I’m not saying do it dramatically, but they need to back that off in conjunction with the interest rates.”
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has been nominated for another term and Grassley says he’ll likely vote for Powell to stay on. “The alternative that they were suggesting, the person that’s going to be voted in as vice chair, would be worse,” Grassley says. “I approved of his policy until he started talking about inflation being transitory and even after it looked like it wouldn’t be transitory, they still talked about it.”
Grassley, a Republican, says there is one other Biden nominee for the Federal Reserve that he’s likely to support. It’s Lisa Cook, an economist from Michigan State University, who would be the first black woman to serve as a Federal Reserve governor.
(Atlantic, Iowa) – Two public hearings will kick-off a meeting of the Atlantic School Board, Wednesday evening. The hearings, followed by the regular school board meeting, begin at 5:30-p.m., and will be held in the Schuler Elementary School Media Center (The meeting will be streamed live at https://youtu.be/zsV817Nvmks). The first public hearing is with regard to the 2022-23 School Calendar. The second pertains to the High School south parking lot and driveway improvements.
During the Board’s regular session that follows, they will receive a Special Presentation from the Archery Club. Later on during the meeting, the Board will act on approving an Archery Club out-of-state trip to Salt Lake City, UT, for the National Archery Tournament. At the State Tournament, the Club finished as State Champions out of 28 teams and fourth out of 21 teams in 3D archery. In addition, Coach Roland was Coach of the Year in Iowa.
In other business, the Board will act on resignations, which include: Dave Erickson, Substitute Bus Driver; Rachael Maxwell and Emily Hanson, WA Food Service; and Janet Adams, HS Food Service. They will then turn to Contract Recommendations and act on approving:
Action items include: approving the 2022-23 School Calendar; a Resolution approving the Plans, Specifications and Forms of Contract for the HS South Parking Lot, and a Resolution award the project contract to the low bidder, United Construction Services Corp, in the amount of $429,733 (paid for through the PPEL/SAVE funds). The Atlantic School Board will also act on approving 2022-23 Contracts for: Non-Union Employee (Central Office, Technology, Directors) – a 3% salary increase amounting to $17,762 altogether; Social Workers $21,427 ($6,100 each) – a 14.91% total increase; Principals & School Business Official contracts (3% salary increase, for a total of $22,965); 2022-23 Medical Insurance Premium Increase (amounting to an estimated $35,000), and an AEA Purchasing Agreement.
The Board will act on passing resolutions: For the 2022-23 Board approved PPEL and General Fund to Activity Fund Transfer for Protective Equipment ($2,650 for helmet reconditioning, $6,110 for the purchase of new helmets/pads). For more details on the Board’s agenda, click HERE.
(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with the Creston Police Department report a man from Cass County was arrested Monday morning on a Union County warrant. 33-year-old Steven Matthew Behlers, of Atlantic, was taken into custody at the Union County Law Enforcement Center in Creston, on a Probation Violation warrant for an original charge of Domestic Abuse Assault. Behlers was being held in the Union County Jail on a $2,000 cash or surety bond.
And, a Creston resident reported Monday afternoon, that someone had entered their unlocked storage unit and taken all of the person’s property that was being stored there. The loss was estimated at $700.
(Radio Iowa) – Rural fire departments have been kept busy responding to field fires the past couple of days — especially in northwest Iowa where six of the ten active burn bans are in place. That includes Woodbury County where a burn ban was enacted on February 20th. County emergency services director, Andrew Donawa, says some people have apparently forgotten about it. He says they’ve had a little snow and rain and people must think they are okay to burn brush. “That’s not the case, we’re still fighting this drought from all this dry weather.”
Donawa says they’ve had more than one dozen fire calls in Woodbury County alone the past two days. Other northwest Iowa counties with burn bans are Plymouth, Cherokee, Ida, Monona, and Crawford counties. Donawa says farmers need to be patient before burning away brush piles. “Just wait, we’ll let you know when the ban is lifted. And if you feel like you need to burn, you should probably call your local fire chief and double-check that the ban has been life. And if it is not lifted — make sure you’re not burning,” Donawa says.
Counties marked in a red flame have an active burn ban in-place; Counties with a blue “I” are where burn bans were recently lifted.
He says if you ignore the ban, you are putting your property and nearby property at risk as well as violating the law. “The sheriff’s office will come out and most likely talk with you and they could possibly give you a ticket for burning under the burn ban,” Donawa says. “The burn bans come from the fire marshal’s office at the state and then the sheriff has the authority to enforce that as a ticket or a citation or a fine.”
Any violation of the burn ban declared by the state fire marshal is a simple misdemeanor with the violator subject to a fine and court costs. The State Fire Marshal’s website lists other burn bans in Mills, Webster, Warren, and Calhoun County.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office says Deputies called at around 3:45-p.m. Monday to a residence in the 400 block of 5th Street, in Villisca, arrested a man on an assault charge. Authorities say 20-year-old Matthew Thomasen was arrested for Domestic Abuse/1st offense. He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail.
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