(Radio Iowa) – The Ankeny-based Casey’s convenience store chain is upping its projection for expansion in this fiscal year. Casey’s Vice President for Investor Relations Brian Johnson talked about the change in a conference call on their first quarter results. “We now expect store growth to be approximately 270 units for the fiscal year, and that’s up from our previously disclosed 100 units,” Johnson says. The increase comes as Casey’s moves toward completing the acquisition of a group of 148 stores in Texas and 50 in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi.
The large scale acquisition of those stores from the FIKES Wholesale company push them ahead of their timeline for expansion.

Casey’s C-E-O Darin Rebelez says he’s not sure if they would buy another large group because of the cost. “We probably have to think really hard about going down that path just to just from a balance sheet perspective, we have a capacity to do it,” he says, “it is whether we want to take on that amount of leverage?” Rebelez says the acquisition team will be looking at options for smaller groups of stores. “We’ll also continue our organic growth, our new to industry stores. We’ll pull back a little bit, just to help us manage the balance sheet a little bit,” he says. He says they will check out opportunities for growth as they become available.

“Deals take time, and you have to be in the market to be in the market, so so to speak. So we will continue to be looking and see what’s out there,” Rebelez says. Casey’s will have 29-hundred stores once the FIKES acquisition is completed by the end of the year. The company reported an increase in net income compared to the same quarter last year with an increase in same store sales and a more than 31-percent increase in gross fuel profit.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Red Oak Police Department reports the arrest at around 6:50-p.m. Thursday, of 59-year-old Douglas James Molden, from Red Oak. Molden was taken into custody in the 100 block of W. Elm Street, and charged with Domestic Abuse Assault. He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held without bond.

NEWTON, Iowa – Officials with the Iowa Department of Corrections, Thursday evening, said an inmate at the Newton Correctional Facility, 23-year-old Malga Harun Yanga, has died. Yanga was pronounced dead at 6:06 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. No other details surrounding his death were provided.

Yanga had been serving a life special sentence from Buena Vista County. His sentence began on Aug. 17, 2020.

(Radio Iowa) – Attorneys for Libertarians nominated to run in three Iowa congressional districts say a state panel didn’t have the authority to kick them off November’s ballots. A Polk County judge heard arguments in the case Thursday afternoon. Jennifer De Kock, representing one of the Libertarian candidates, says her client’s free speech rights are being violated and that should outweigh strict enforcement of state rules for how political parties conduct business.

“What they’re trying to do is say: ‘If you don’t do it, if you don’t follow the minutiae, if you don’t make sure that all your T’s and I’s are properly crossed and dotted, then we’re going to take you off the ballot,” she said. Alan Ostergren is the attorney for Republicans who filed petitions showing the Libertarian Party failed to follow state law regarding the timing of the party’s county conventions. “No candidate has an unfettered right to access to the General Election ballot,” Ostergren says. “To get on the ballot, a candidate has to follow certain rules.”

Polk County District Judge Michael Huppert says he’ll issue a ruling soon, but it’s likely to be appealed by the losing side, so the Iowa Supreme Court may have the final say on whether the Libertarians’ names will be printed on ballots.

(Radio Iowa) – House Speaker Pat Grassley says if Republicans retain the majority in the Iowa House after the November election, his focus will be property tax reform. “We’ve made steps in the right direction, but I think we have to really look at it,” Grassley says. “We have to reshape the balance of the property tax conversation around the taxpayer.” Grassley says over the past six years Republican lawmakers have focused heavily on cutting income taxes, but the property tax bills Iowans are receiving from local governments also require response from state policymakers.

“We need to force the conversation that taxing authorities sit down in a room and decide: We’re only getting so much of Iowans’ money. How are we going to best spend it? Because right now I don’t think the system is in favor of the property taxpayer. I think we can fundamentally change that,” Grassley says. “Now, that being said, not everyone’s going to love that, but to really tackle that issue of property taxes, we’re going to have to be bold in doing this. We can’t just nibble around the edges. We’re going to have to take it head on.”

Grassley admits previous attempts at significant change in the state’s property tax system have stalled, but Grassley says Republican lawmakers have a recent track record of accomplishing tough things.) “We have proven with some of the things that we have done, this governor in partnership with the legislature have tackled issues that we have tried before and we’ve been successful,” Grassley says. “…Choice in education, you look at the largest tax cuts in state history.”

Back in 2003, legislative leaders from both parties formed a working group to tackle property tax reform, but were unable to come up with an agreement. In 2013, then-Governor Terry Branstad signed a bill designed to limit commercial property tax growth. During the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers passed an estimated 100-million in targeted property tax relief — including a new property tax credit for Iowans over the age of 65.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, a Republican from Marion is criticizing the Biden Administration’s continued effort to forgive college student loans. She says it shifts the burden to others. “Truck drivers, farmers, bartenders, electricians and plumbers shouldn’t have to pay for someone else’s degree. Those who sacrificed and worked hard to pay off their own student loans shouldn’t then have to take on someone else’s debt,” she says.

The Second District Representative says forgiving student loans does not stop the problem of college students building large amounts of debt. “This would not be a one time occurrence. This will incentivize students to take on more debt, knowing that someone else will ultimately pay it back,” Hinson says. “That’ll drive up tuition rates and perpetuate the accumulation of the cycle of debt instead of breaking it.”

Hinson says students need to be educated on the front end of what they are getting into. She says Iowa colleges are doing a good job of explaining to potential students how much it will cost and how much they can expect to earn in their respective majors. “I think that that’s the conversation that needs to happen in higher education before students are taking on literally thousands and thousands of dollars in debt and all the interest that goes along with that,” Hinson says.

Hinson’s comments come as several states led by Republicans have sued the Biden Administration over the plan to eliminate 73 BILLION dollars in federal student loan debt.