(Shenandoah, Iowa) –  A collision Tuesday morning about one-half mile south of Shenandoah, resulted in injuries to drivers of two vehicles. The Page County Sheriff’s Office reports at accident happened at around 9:05-a.m. at the intersection of Highway 2 and A Avenue. An investigation determined 93-year-old Darrel Dean Allely, of rural Shenandoah, was behind the wheel of a 2015 Acura on Highway 2 and A Avenue. A 2020 Ford Explorer driven by 60-year-old Cynthia Ann Wainwright, of rural Bedford,  was on Highway 2 just east of the intersection with A Avenue.

Authorities say Allely was traveling north on A Avenue, when he drove into the path of Wainwright. Wainwright’s SUV struck Allely’s car on the passenger side front fender / front door area with the front end of her vehicle. Both vehicles came to rest in the northwest portion of the intersection. Both Wainwright and Allely were transported to the Shenandoah Memorial Hospital with unknown injuries. Charges are pending at this time.

The Page County Sheriff’s Office was assisted at the scene by Shenandoah Ambulance service, Shenandoah Fire Department, Shenandoah Police Department, and Page County EMA.

Sheriff’s officials in Page County report two arrests. On Tuesday (April 5th), deputies arrested 56-year-old James Randall Gomel, of rural Northboro. He was taken into custody on a Christian County, Missouri warrant for a Sex Offender Registry violation. Gomel was being held in the Page County Jail, pending extradition proceedings to Missouri.

James R. Gomel

And, on Monday, deputies in Page County arrested 19-year-old Braden Alan Gray, of Council Bluffs. He was wanted on a Page County warrant for Failure to Appear. Gray was being held in the Page County Jail on $1,000 bond, pending further court proceedings.

Braden A. Gray

A charge is merely an accusation and that the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.

(Radio Iowa) – Six fire crews from three different southern Iowa counties fought an overnight fire on the town square in Osceola. The fire in an abandoned building in Osceola late last night and was extinguished just before sunrise. Osceola’s fire chief told a reporter for WHO-TV that a fire wall had protected apartments in the building next door. Apartment residents were safely evacuated. Police have blocked off a corner on the town square as fire crews monitor the burned out structure. The site of the fire is just north of the Clarke County Courthouse, which is open for business today.

Osceola’s commercial district, including the town square, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places four years ago, as some of the buildings date back to the 1890s.

(Greenfield, Iowa) – The Adair County Board of Supervisors will continue to use their Conference Call service during their Board meetings. That decision was reached during their meeting this (Wednesday) morning, in Greenfield. The Board began using the Conference Call when the pandemic limited attendance at in-person meetings. The call-in, access code system is especially helpful to the media and others who wish to listen to the proceedings, but are not able to attend. The system comes at no cost to the county.

The Board approved Courtyard use permits for the April 16th Easter Egg Hunt, “Summer Kick-off,” and 4th of July.

In other business, Adair County Attorney Melissa Larson presented the Board with a proposal for the use of American Rescue Plan funds for “i-Crimefighter.” The program is a mobile and tablet evidence collection system for Law Enforcement.The applications allows officers to capture pictures, videos, audio recordings and notes in the field and upload evidence to secure cloud hosting. It would benefit all Law Enforcement Agencies in the County, at a cost of $4,500 per year, for three-years ($13,500 in total).

She said the app has other benefits as well.

Sheriff Jeff Vandewater explained the system is very versatile and can be helpful during investigations. That’s especially true where there is video evidence available from the public.

The Board passed a motion to move forward with acquiring the program. Adair County Engineer Nick Kauffman requested the Board approve setting April 20th at 9:30-a.m., as the date and time for a Public Hearing on the vacating of 140th Street for one-half mile on the north side of Section 30, Lincoln. The request was approved. Kauffman also discussed the County 5-year Construction Program, during which there were some changes in the cost and scope of some projects. The Adair County Supervisors approved the revised plan as presented. Nick Kauffman also discussed some current and future road maintenance and related activities.

(UPDATED} (Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors today (Wednesday), after having conducted interviews, selected and appointed Republican Sara Harris, of Atlantic, as County Auditor, to fill a vacancy. Dale Sunderman, who served as the County Auditor for more than 37-years, had announced his intention in February, to resign from the post, effective April 15^th. Board Chair Steve Baier read from Sunderman’s resignation letter to the Board.

The Supervisors this (Wednesday) morning, regretfully accepted his resignation.

Cass Supervisors discuss Dale Sunderman’s amended resignation letter (Dale and his wife Sheryl are seated near the flag)

Afterward, Chairman Baier administered the Oath of Office to Sara Harris.

Board Chair Steve Baier administers the Oath of Office to Sara Harris.

Harris will serve the remainder of Sunderman’s term, which expires at the end of the year.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge is going to use a donate vacant store from Casey’s for the future home of its Biofuel Testing lab. Iowa Central president, Jesse Ulrich, says  He says they started the biofuel lab ten years ago and it was one of the first back then and now they are looking to expand it to better serve Iowa and the rest of the country as well. Ulrich says they are in the planning stages after Casey’s agreed to give them the building. He says they hope to get bids this summer and it will take one year to 18 months to build it.

Ulrich says it will allow them to get students more involved in the biofuels testing lab. “What we’re really looking at is being able to expand that into having more and more students take part through apprenticeships and learning from that lab,” according to Ulrich. “And by vacating chemistry labs or some type of classroom space for the general academic side as well.”

The new center will be located on the west side of Fort Dodge near the Iowa Central campus and not far from a Bio Ag center where Cargill, Valero Energy, and CJ BIO have production and processing facilities.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors will meet today at 8-a.m. to accept the resignation of longtime County Auditor Dale Sunderman.  Afterward, the Board are expected to act on appointing a person to fill the vacancy position. That person will serve the remainder of Sunderman’s term, which expires at the end of the year.

You may recall, that on February 16, Sunderman submitted his resignation letter to the Board of Supervisors after serving for more than 37-years.

Dale Sunderman (Official Cass County photo)

(Radio Iowa)  – Republican Senator Joni Ernst says President Biden’s pick for the U.S. Supreme Court is a highly qualified attorney, but Ernst says she cannot vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson nomination. “Perhaps my greatest issue with Judge Jackson is her lack of adherence to a judicial philosophy,” Ernst says. Ernst says as a member of the Senate, she will only vote for justices who pledge to be an originalist and interpret words in the Constitution based on their meaning at the time the document was adopted in 1788.

“If a justice’s legal interpretation has no philosophical grounding, that provides flexibility for a justice to bend their thinking to achieve a desired outcome,” Ernst says. “…We have enough politicians in the legislative branch. We don’t need any in the courts, especially the Supreme Court.”

Ernst, who met with Jackson on March 30th, says the judge showed grace under pressure during last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. But Ernst says Jackson’s answer when asked to define a woman was troubling.  “The judge responded that she’s not a biologist,” Ernst said. “…”While I’m grateful Judge Jackson believes science is the basis for determining a woman, I’m deeply concerned that a fellow woman, who is set to define the contours of laws that are specific to women, has to even think about an answer to that question.”

Ernst made her remarks during a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday. Iowa’s other U.S. Senator, Chuck Grassley, also plans to vote against Jackson’s nomination. Jackson is on a clear path to joining the nation’s highest court, as three other Republicans in the Senate have announced they’ll join with Democrats to confirm Jackson.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa House has approved legislation to require that mobile home park owners notify residents 90 days before increases in rent or utilities go into effect. Under current law, there’s a 60 day notice period. Advocates for the renters and owners of manufactured housing say large corporations are buying mobile home parks around the country and raising the rents on lots to impossible heights. Representative Lindsay James, a Democrat from Dubuque, voted for the bill, but James says it should have limited rent increases.

“They’ve invested their life savings into their home and now, because of their insatiable greed of the predatory businesses, they are facing losing it all,” James says. Representative Amy Nielsen, a Democrat from North Liberty, says the bill offers crumbs to mobile home residents and she voted against it. “So, yeah, I’m angry. This is three years worth of frustration. I think that this effort falls way short,” Nielsen says. “The people of Iowa deserve better.”

Representative Kenan Judge, a Democrat from Waukee, voted for the bill, but he says it only makes incremental changes and mobile home park residents deserve better. “My constituents and Iowans across this state deserve a 12 month lease and, in that lease, safety from eviction,” Judge says. “If you think about it, you have that protection in an apartment…These are not crazy ideas.”

Representative Brian Lohse, a Republican from Bondurant, led development of the bill.  “Wish I could have hit that triple, hit the home run, but I couldn’t get there,” Lohse says, “but I got a single, at least.” Lohse says the bill does includes some new protections, like new rules that let tenants arrange to get running water to their home if the supply is cut off through no fault of their own and it specifies when mobile home park owners can access a home after the resident dies.

A property tax break for the people who own or rent the homes in mobile home parks was removed from the bill.  “So while, again, it’s not the bill I’d like to have, it’s the bill I can get,” Lohse says. This is the second time the House has passed a bill extending some new protections to mobile home park residents, but a bill on the topic has not passed the Senate.

(Radio Iowa) – The Creighton University survey showed good growth for Iowa and other states in the middle of the country — but there are concerns about what is ahead. Creighton economist Ernie Goss says he was surprised at the Business Condition Index for March — which is figured on a 100 point scale.

“It jumped to 71-point-three, and that’s the highest reading since July of 2021. It was up from last month’s reading, February’s reading of 64-point-zero, ” Goss says. “This was almost. I won’t call it a shocker — but I was surprised it was so strong,” Goss says. He says 50 represents growth neutral on the scale. Goss says Iowa and the other states in the survey region are doing better than the country as a whole.

“It’s much stronger, much stronger for the MidAmerican region than the U-S. And I attribute that to much higher agricultural commodity prices and the spillover into the other industries across the region,” according to Goss. “That’s why I think we are seeing a much better reading for the MidAmerican region.” Goss says there are ongoing concerns.

He says seven out of ten supply managers say supply chain disruptions are their biggest concern they face for the coming year, while two out of ten say rising interest rates are a concern. Goss does expect the Fed Reserve to raise interest rates again in May. Goss says there has been an expansion of businesses, but only Arkansas is back to employment levels before the pandemic. He says the economy is likely to slow.

“Inflation will remain very high, of course, we’ve now recorded this very strong inflation number for March. So this is going to remain with us for some time, the Consumer Price Index will be higher in the weeks and months ahead. Economic growth will slow and potentially move into negative territory.

Iowa’s individual Business Conditions Index for March rose to 75-point-six from 60-point-six in February. Over the past 12 months, the report says Iowa’s average hourly manufacturing wages expanded by three-point-seven percent — eighth highest among the nine states.