The broadcast news from Ric Hanson.

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June 18, 2021 (DES MOINES) – Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Iowa Economic Development Authority today (Friday) announced $400,000 in grant funding awarded to 26 projects that will help grow and revitalize rural communities across the state. Gov. Reynolds said “The Rural Innovation Grant program and the Rural Housing Assessment Grant program help turn innovative ideas into reality for so many small communities across Iowa, paving the way for opportunity and prosperity for generations to come. The Governor’s Empower Rural Iowa Initiative continues to bring together stakeholders from all walks of life who are focused on growing our rural communities.”

Iowa Lt. Governor Adam Greg says “We’re building on the success of last year’s launch of these transformative grants with a second round of projects that will serve as models for rural revitalization across the state. The governor and I look forward to seeing the projects that step forward to apply.”

The Governor’s Empower Rural Iowa Initiative developed the following grant programs in 2019 for rural communities of fewer than 20,000 people:

• The Rural Innovation Grant program supports creative ideas to overcome rural community development challenges, such as workforce development and housing shortages.  In the KJAN listening area:
• The City of Griswold was awarded $10,000 to install food lockers downtown for regional delivery w/Ramsey Market. The total project cost is $65,00; The City of Lenox was awarded $20,000 for activation of an alley into a pocket park, w/a curb bump out. The total project cost is $80,000; The City of Manning was awarded $7,600 towards the total cost of $11,400, for Conceptual design for three housing developments & community input processes.; and, the Southwest Iowa Nature Trails Project by the City of Imogene, was awarded $20,000 towards the $35,140 cost of a bike trail beautification with a mural, sculpture and community spaces.

The Rural Housing Assessment program supports efforts to expand access to quality housing tailored to communities. The program leverages data from the Iowa Finance Authority’s Profile of Iowa tool and provides support through a partnership with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. The grants cover 26 projects across the state, including: The Cities of Mount Ayr and Onawa, which were awarded $10,000 each, to facilitate with ISU Extension and Implementation. Atlantic, Grinnell, Livermore, Rock Valley, Sheldon and Shenandoah also received Rural Housing Assessment grants, and will participate in readiness assessment and implementation process in partnership with Iowa State University Office of Extension and Outreach.

A full list of grant recipients is available at iowaeda.com/empower-rural-iowa.

Officials with the Creston Police Department report a Des Moines man, 21-year-old Steven Michael Hildebrand, was arrested Thursday at 809 W. Adams St., in Creston. He was charged with Theft 2nd Degree, Possession of Controlled Substance 3rd, and a Union County Warrant for Failure to Appear Theft 5th. Hildebrand being held in the Union County Jail on a $10,000 cash or surety bond.

The broadcast news at 7:07-a.m. w/Ric Hanson.

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Last week, the Mayor of Audubon issued a Water Emergency in effect until September 1, 2021. Thursday, City officials in Exira issued a Mandatory Water Conservation Notice. The Regional Rural Water Association is asking citizens of Exira to abide by the following restrictions:

(Radio Iowa/KJAN) – Fireworks are now on sale in Iowa, mostly from tents, but just because you can buy the booming noisemakers doesn’t mean it’s okay to set them off. In May, the Atlantic City Council set July 2nd, 3rd and 4th, from Noon until 11-p.m. each day, as the dates and times for fireworks celebrations in advance of and on, Independence Day. State law says cities and counties cannot ban the sale of fireworks, but municipalities -can- forbid their use. Clinton Mayor Scott Maddasion has a reminder for residents of that eastern Iowa community. “I’ve already gotten a few emails about this, people are amping up for it,” Mayor Maddasion says. “The state of Iowa allows fireworks to be sold in the state of Iowa, but the discharge of fireworks in the city limits of Clinton is still illegal.”

Many Iowa communities have banned the use of fireworks by the general public, while still allowing professional displays. Since fireworks were legalized in Iowa, critics have bemoaned how contradictory the law appears — mandating that fireworks be legal to sell but then allowing cities to ban them from being used. “It is extremely difficult and the state legislature’s put us in that position and that’s their choice,” he says. “We’ve got some people in town that sell the fireworks and I’m sure they make good money off it and that’s good for them. I don’t want to hinder anybody’s business in that sense.”

Police in a number of Iowa cities have had a difficult time in past summers ticketing and stopping those who ignore the local ordinances and set off fireworks. Maddasion explains why it’s difficult to enforce. “It’s just like anything else, innocent until proven guilty and you have to be caught in the act to be prosecuted,” Maddasion says. “Please call the PD if someone is doing that. They’re going to do their best to not only monitor the fireworks stuff but monitor all the other things that they’re doing on a daily basis.” The mayor is urging all Iowans to be good neighbors, especially during the upcoming 4th of July weekend. “Please, please, please, let’s limit or eliminate completely the amount of fireworks that are going off,” he says. “There’s a lot of things that come into play. We’ve got veterans with PTSD and the explosions can cause issues there. We have a lot of other folks that just don’t like it, which is fine, too, so I can’t say it enough, please, don’t discharge fireworks.”

Fireworks are legal to sell in Iowa from permanent structures between June 1st and July 8th and from tents and other temporary structures from June 13th through July 8th. It’s also legal to sell them in the state during a short period around New Year’s Eve.

(Radio Iowa) – Not far from the birthplace of actor John Wayne, the tiny southwest Iowa community of Macksburg is hosting its annual National Skillet Throwing Competition this weekend. Organizer Becky Faust says they have a pile of steel skillets of various sizes from which contestants may choose their weapons. They have to hurl the skillet underhanded about 30 feet at the head of a defenseless dummy. “We have three dummies and we have two different sites, so there’s six dummies total, and you’ll have three chances to throw a skillet at a dummy and a total of three skillets per turn,” Faust says. “The goal is to knock the basketball off the dummy. That is the head.”

Skillet chuckers come from all across Iowa and multiple other states to participate. There are typically 50 or so five-member teams in the competition. Faust says there’s a definite skill to accurately throwing a skillet and she explains the rules.”There’s two different things. You want to have a direct hit,” Faust says. “A direct hit is any way that the skillet hits the basketball directly and knocks the head off. That’s worth three points. If you hit the dummy any other way and the ball falls off, or any other way the ball falls off, that is one point.”

Not unlike the Hog Calling Contest at the Iowa State Fair, this contest’s origins are somewhat dubious but remain rooted in tradition. “This is our 44th year of doing this,” Faust says. “It started when they were having a celebration in the town and the postmaster came up with the idea to do this and it’s been going ever since.” Each set of basketball-headed dummies is surrounded by a reinforced wire fence which is meant to keep stray skillets from braining bystanders. Faust says she’s unaware of any injuries during past contests. “If you’re up close to the competition, you’ve always got to be aware of your surroundings,” Faust says. “We try to get those fences high enough that any skillet should not be coming over the fence.”

The Madison County town, population 113, is holding a hot dog and hamburger social tonight (Friday), during which anyone can practice their skillet hurling skills. On Saturday, there will be a parade at 10 AM, followed by other events, including a pedal tractor pull, with the skillet throwing contest starting at noon.

On the web at macksburgskilletthrow.com

Red Oak Police report the arrest at around 8:40-p.m. Thursday, of 20-year-old Vanessa Michelle Jensen, of Red Oak. Jensen was taken into custody in the 400 block of E. Joy Street, on a charge of Simple Assault. At last report, she was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $300 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – The U-S House has passed a proposal from Iowa Congresswoman Cindy Axne that would force big corporations to disclose if they’re outsourcing jobs and using so-called tax havens in other countries to avoid paying U.S. taxes. “Last year 55 profitable US corporations paid no federal corporate income taxes,” Axne says. “I can tell you that’s not what happened on Main Street back in my district in Iowa. They paid their taxes.” The plan would require corporations with shareholders to publicly disclose how many people it employs on a country-by-country basis.

Axne and others say it would show how big multinational corporations open a store front in a low-tax jurisdiction to avoid paying U-S taxes where all their sales and profits are made. “This cost the US more than $50 billion per year in taxes,” Axne says. “It hurts all of the businesses who are doing the right thing — those that are on Main Streret in all of our communities, including many small businesses across this country who don’t have a subsidiary in Barbados just to avoid taxes.” This attempt at revealing which corporations are using off-shore tax havens was included in a wide-ranging package that narrowly cleared the U.S. House this week.

Another Axne proposal was included that would require require public companies that are owned by investors to disclose more information about pay and benefits, training programs, workplace safety and how much turnover there is in the corporation’s workforce. Axne says stockholders deserve that information. “By the way, these are sets of data that are already being collected by most public companies,” Axne says. “The pandemic, though, has only driven home how important it is for companies to make sure that their workers stay safe and healthy for their company’s success. It’s obviously that companies with workers that are more engaged will do better, which is why investors want this information.”

Axne, a Democrat from West Des Moines, says Democrats from Virginia and Maryland are sponsoring companion legislation in the U.S. Senate.

(Radio Iowa) – A bill that became law this week increases the state tax credit for volunteer firefighters from 100 to 250 dollars. Another approved by the governor last week will, for the first time, let voters approve a property tax levy to support the operations of a local fire department. About 90 percent of the firefighters in Iowa are volunteers and Iowa Firefighters Association president Nick Riley of Traer says legislators recognized volunteer firefighters took on new risks during the pandemic as emergency responders, transporting Covid patients to hospitals.

“Their interest in us has greatly increased throughout the pandemic,” he says, “which was greatly, greatly appreciated by everyone.” Riley says the association is hoping to take another step in 2022 and get legislative approval of a pension fund that volunteer firefighters could contribute to. Riley says the Iowa Firefighters Association has found a financial institution that will manage it.

“We can sit down with some of the legislators that had some of those big questions of: How will it be run, how will it funded, what will a fire fighter at the end of his service — how can he get his money?” Riley, like many, has a family history in the profession. His dad was a firefighter for 33 years in Mount Pleasant. His brother served for 15 years and Riley has been a firefighter for the past 12 years. The Iowa Association of Firefighters represents 15-thousand volunteer and career firefighters.