(Radio Iowa) – Iowa flower shops will be exceptionally busy places to patronize on this Valentine’s Day and if you’re hoping to buy flowers for someone special, you may have to stand in line for what will likely end up being a limited selection. Kelsey Thompson, the owner of Bloom Algona, says customers are always better served if they placed an order well in advance. “We always encourage people to pre-order as soon as they can because we start designing usually three to four days ahead,” Thompson says, “so that way, when the big day is here, we have flowers ready and waiting.” Anticipating high demand, florists across the state are hiring on extra help both in-store and for deliveries, especially with Valentine’s Day falling on a Tuesday this year.

“It really fluctuates depending on the day of the week,” Thompson says, “Tuesday’s generally busy because people come to work Monday morning and go, ‘Oh, shoot,’ and then they call us, so I’m anticipating a little bit busier than last year.” Between ballooning inflation rates and prolonged supply chain issues, Thompson says the price for roses is rising. “Pretty similar to last year, maybe a bit higher,” Thompson says, “Like everything else in the world, you know, you go to the grocery store and prices are higher, you go to any store and prices are higher, so we’re seeing a little bit of a price increase.”

She says the average price for a dozen roses this year is roughly 80-dollars at Iowa floral shops.

(Radio Iowa)- Blind and deaf Iowans are urging lawmakers to reject some of the changes proposed in the governor’s state government reorganization plan. A spokesperson for Governor Reynolds say there are no plans to close the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs, but some advocates point to a part of the governor’s bill that would repeal the Iowa law that says the legislature has to approve a move to close the school. Speaking through an American Sign Language interpreter, Sarah Young Bear-Brown says her six-year-old daughter is thriving at the school.

“It’s like our second home,” Young Bear-Brown says. “I don’t want to see another school close. I do not want to see that. We need to keep the Iowa School for the Deaf open.” Young Bear-Brown, a graduate of the Iowa School for the Deaf, tried to share her views during a Senate subcommittee meeting yesterday (Monday), but there was no sign language interpreter on the online platform.

The government reorganization bill also calls for Governor Kim Reynolds to start appointing the director of the Iowa Department for the Blind. For nearly 100 years, the Iowa Commission for the Blind has selected the agency’s director. Cindy Ray of Urbandale is an officer with the National Federation of the Blind of Iowa. “I have seen that blind people running the agency understand and know blind people,” Ray said.

Mary McGee of Des Moines, who has been blind all her life, says the agency’s training gives blind Iowans the confidence to work and contribute to society. “And we’re going to lose that if friends of the governor or good political supporters or optometrists get on that board and consumers have no input like they do now,” McGee said.

Molly Severn, an aide to Governor Reynolds, says Iowans have the perception that state government officials are accountable to the governor, so governors should be appointing the agency’s director.

(Radio Iowa) – Key Republican lawmakers are questioning “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” programs at Iowa’s three state universities. Republican Representative Taylor Collins of Mediapolis, is a member of the House panel that oversees the budgets for the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. Collins suggests the six figure salaries for the the top diversity and social justice officers at the three schools are excessive.

“I don’t know anybody in my district who makes north of $250,000 a year,” Collins said during a subcommittee hearing today. Collins said he has a “hard time squaring” a request for more state funding when the state universities are spending about $750-thousand a year to pay the four diversity officers on the campuses in Ames, Iowa City and Cedar Falls. “I think everything’s on the table to make sure costs are being affordable for students,” Collins said.

Republican Representative Skyler Wheeler of Hull, chairman of the House Education Committee, told the three university president he wants to know why diversity, equity and inclusion programs “have become such a phenomenon” on college campuses. “These positions haven’t always been there,” Wheeler said.

University of Northern Iowa president Mark Nook said UNI has been involved in working on diversity issues in and around the Cedar Falls campus for 50 years and he said large Iowa employers like John Deere are asking universities to help students from diverse backgrounds complete college. “It’s about solving the primary economic challenge that this state faces,” Nook said, “simply not having enough people for the jobs that are here.”

University of Iowa president Barbara Wilson told lawmakers employers are asking for graduates who can lead in a diverse world. “How to be able to work in diverse teams, how to be able to think about diversity in terms of clients, products, marketplaces,” Wilson said, “so if we don’t have strategies that really think for where we’re headed in the next 10 years, we’re not going to be able to get our students great jobs either.”

Iowa State University president Wendy Wintersteen told lawmakers diversity and equity are part of ISU’s heritage. “When Iowa State had its first presidential installation in 1869, the board of trustees said at that time said that everyone would be welcome regardless of race, regardless of gender, regardless of socioeconomic status,” Wintersteen said. “This was a new idea at that time.”

Earlier this month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he plans to ban Florida’s state universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and GOP lawmakers in other states are discussing similar moves.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Natural Resources Commission has approved funding for another year of a program to monitor bats. The D-N-R’s Kelly Poole says the program this summer will monitor bat sounds to track them and inventory their numbers. “Related to white nose syndrome, which is a disease that’s killing thousands of bats,” she says.

She says it is something they have done since 2013.” Iowa State University will be coordinating our community science program to actually collect the data. They’ll be processing the data and they’ll be submitting it to the North American bat monitoring program, which is a requirement of this grant,” Poole says. She says they anticipate using some 35 to 40 volunteers to run routes in the state to track the bats.

“The information is important to us because it’s part of our the D-N-R’S white nose response plan,” Poole says. The volunteers record the noises the bats make that help them navigate in the dark. The contract for the monitoring says the costs are not to exceed 27-thousand dollars.

(Radio Iowa) – A Senate subcommittee has advanced a bill that would let Iowans with a doctor’s recommendation have a darker tint applied to the windows of their vehicles. Senator Waylon Brown of Osage said the bill as written isn’t ready, but he’d like to figure out a solution.

“I have three people in my district who have what’s called Dracula Disease and sunlight actually causes the blood to come up to the surface of their skin,” Brown said, “so they can only travel at night.”

Dracula Disease is a real genetic disorder that’s likely the origin of the vampire myth. Iowans who suffered eye discomfort in bright sunlight, a condition called photophobia, used to be able to get a medical exemption and the DOT’s permission to have a darker tint applied to their vehicles’ windows, but legislators repealed that law in 2012. Brown said he has constituents who got those window tint exemptions before it began illegal.

“Those vehicles are about at the end of their life,” Brown said, “and they’re not going to be able to get the window tint they need to be able to drive during the daylight.”

Law enforcement officials say vehicles that have a darker tint on the windshield or the front side windows are a safety risk. Iowa State Patrol Sergeant Wade Major said tinted windows prevent eye-to-eye contact between motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians at intersections.

“Whether you have the right of way or not, essentially you’re going to look over to left or right and you make that eye contact,” Major said. “What we’re seeing nowadays with these tinted windows, those that are basically illegal in the state is not only the sides are being tinted, but also the fronts are being tinted, so that is a concern of ours because you do not have that eye to eye contact or clear vision as you go through there.”

Major also told lawmakers that officers approaching a vehicle during a traffic stop are trained to look for the driver’s hands. “Hands are what’s going to hurt us, usually. When we approach a vehicle, we want to be able to see those hands for officer safety issues,” he said. “With a window tint, it distorts the vision and you can’t really see in that well.”

Law enforcement officials say encountering more tinted windows will make it harder to enforce Iowa’s seat belt law or see when a driver is illegally using a smart phone.