(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa D-N-R plans to expand its bat monitoring program across the state with some new contracts. The D-N-R’s Karen Kinkead says the program began around 10 years ago. “And we’ve sort of grown the program over the last several years adding a new county or two each year. And so, this time we’ve gotten more money and we are hoping to expand almost statewide over the next three years,” Kinkead says. Federal officials picked the states where the sound monitoring of bats is done. She says the states and their partners then come up with routes that are driven by cars with boxes on top that records the sounds of the bats as they use echo location to fly and find food. Those recorded sounds then let them know what type of bats they have in each state.

Kinkead says computer software determines what type of bat the recorder heard. She says bat populations have been declining after being hit by disease. “White Nose Syndrome is a fungus that was introduced into the eastern U-S many years ago and it has slowly moved westward and has is know found I believe from coast to coast — we do have it here in Iowa,” she says. “And it’s a fungus that eats through the skin of the bat as it hibernates in the winter. Obviously it makes them uncomfortable it wakes them up and there is no food available, there’s no water available, and it disrupts their metabolism and causes quite a bit of mortality.” Kinkead says there’s some indication that White Nose Syndrome has dropped off in the east.

“Since it’s new in Iowa, we think we are still seeing a decline in our bat numbers, and we want to get a handle on that,” she says. The D-N-R has won some federal money to go along with state money, and will work with Iowa State University and the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation in the bat tracking program. Kinkead says there’s no way to treat the bats — so they are focusing on improving their habitat to make them healthier.

“Invasive species in our forests is a real issue — like honeysuckle and those other invesive shrubs come in. It makes it hard for people to walk in the woods, and it also makes it hard for bats to fly and echo locate and find the insects that they need to eat and to stay healthy in the summer and produce young,” according to Kinkead. She says they are still determining which counties they will add to their bat monitoring. They will also be sending out a call for volunteers to drive the bat listening routes sometime in April or May.

(Radio Iowa) – A disaster recovery fund set up by the Greater Madison County Community Foundation is taking donations to support families impacted by Saturday’s deadly tornado. The E-F-4 twister damaged or destroyed more than 50 Winterset area homes. Foundation manager Tom Leners says with volatile prices for building materials, insurance and government relief may fall short of what people need to repair and rebuild. Leners says, “The future need and probably the bigger over-the-horizon need is for funding to go ahead and fill in the gap of what insurance and disaster payments don’t cover.”

Six people were killed in the Winterset area storm, with multiple injuries. Leners says the fund could also help pay for medical costs, deductibles or clean-up jobs not covered by insurance. The Red Cross is working with New Bridge Church in Winterset to operate a shelter for people whose homes were damaged or destroyed. Madison County Chamber of Commerce director Amara Huffine says the operation is well-stocked with food, supplies and winter clothing. She says what people need now is gift cards to help cover the cost of gas, groceries and other essentials. “Those are the biggest needs we have a lot of outpouring that have provided food, clothing all of that, that’s all taken care of,” Huffine says, “it’s the gift cards and the financial support.”

Huffine says gift cards can be dropped off or sent to New Bridge Church, while cash donations can be sent to the foundation or made online at MadisonCountyFoundation.org.

(by Grant Gerlock, Iowa Public Radio)

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A traffic stop in Red Oak, Tuesday night resulted in the arrest of an Adair County man. Red Oak Police report 34-year-old Kevin James Jungers, of Bridgewater, was taken into custody at around 10-p.m. for Driving Under Suspension – a simple misdemeanor. He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on bond amounting to $491.25.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa House subcommittee has endorsed the governor’s plan to provide state-funded accounts for parents, to send up to 10-thousand children to a private school. The panel held a subcommittee hearing as supporters of the bill held a rally in the Capitol rotunda. Samantha Fett of Carlisle told lawmakers greater competition from private schools will make public schools better.  “My daughter is a junior in high school and so I’m almost done and I could easily walk away and look the other way and I can’t because I’m a patriot and I care about the generations to come,” she said, “so please support this bill.”

Dave Daughton of Rural School Advocates of Iowa, the retired superintendent of Wayne Community Schools, responded. “I have coached for years and I’m extremely competitive,” Daughton said. “However, you can’t be competitive if the rules aren’t the same for both teams and so I just want to make sure that everybody understands that.”

Shanda Carstens, a parent from Panora, says the plan gives private schools a competitive advantage. “Our rural communities know our public schools are our heart and soul,” she said. “Rural community leaders know when they are getting the short end of the stick and they know this bill doesn’t improve education in those small communities.”

Pam Molde of Pella, a bill backer, urged legislators to expand the plan and provide funds to parents like her who home school their children. “One of the largest checks that we write each year is to our public schools in the form of our property taxes. This is not public money. This is our money,” Molde said. “…This is the money of 70% of Iowans who call themselves Christians and want a different choice for their kids.”

The bill includes other regulations for public schools. Public school boards would have to publish lesson plans for the entire year before school starts, including the books, articles or films that teachers intend to use during classes. School boards would be given 10 days to respond to parents objecting to books in the school library. The bill also calls for high school students to pass a civics test before they may graduate.

(Radio Iowa) – Democrats in the Iowa House are calling for cancelling the contract for an attorney hired to represent a House committee as it investigates a district court judge. Judge Kurt Stoebe of Humboldt has been accused of improperly trying to influence a commission choosing nominees to be a district court judge. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee say they were not consulted when Republican Representative Steven Holt, the committee’s chairman, hired attorney Alan Ostergren to work on the investigation of the judge.

Ostergren represented the Republican Party in an election-related lawsuit two years ago. Representative Mary Wolfe, a Democrat from Clinton, says Ostergren’s hiring raises the concern that outside groups are pushing to investigate the judge, as a way to interfere in the courts. Holt says as the committee’s chairman he and the speaker of the House had the authority to hire Ostergren.

Holt describes Ostergren as the only attorney they could find who had the intestinal fortitude to take on the court system to find out what the judge did.