(Council Bluffs, Iowa) – The Iowa State Patrol is joining forces with Metro Area Organizations to Take a Stand Against Speeding, for “Speeding Awareness Week.” Trooper Ryan DeVault says the Iowa and Nebraska departments of Transportation, the City of Omaha and more than 20 agencies and organizations are asking motorists to watch their speed by joining their voices together in a public education campaign to emphasize that following posted speed limits is critical to driver, passenger, pedestrian and cyclist safety. Beginning today (January 24), you’ll be seeing messages related to “Speeding Awareness Week” on social media, digital ads, and dynamic message signs around the metro and both states.

As traffic volumes have rebounded from an initial decline during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, speeding has remained a serious issue. These two factors, speeding and high volumes, have resulted in a staggering number of speeding tickets in the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area. And while areas across the country are dealing with excessive speeding issues, Omaha and Council Bluffs metro area agencies are hoping to combat the problem via an educational campaign before traffic volumes increase even more during the spring and summer months.

Austin Yates, an engineer with the Iowa DOT, says “Metro area law enforcement agencies and first responders have noticed that speeding has increasingly become a factor in crashes, both in minor incidents and more serious crashes. This is an issue that can’t be ignored. Any speeding puts more lives at risk, which is why we partnered up to declare this week Speeding Awareness Week.” Speed impacts those outside of vehicles, too. Changes in speed can have real-life consequences for pedestrians. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, if a person is hit by a vehicle going 20 miles per hour (mph), there is a 10 percent chance of fatality. The chance of fatality increases to 40 percent if a vehicle if going 30 mph and then increases to an 80 percent chance of fatality if the vehicle’s speed is at 40 mph.

Speeding, both “casual” and excessive, results in serious losses of time, money but – most importantly – human life. That’s why, as part of Speeding Awareness Week, every partner agency encourages drivers to slow down and follow the posted speed limit on roads. Information about the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area’s Speeding Awareness Week can be found at: slowdownmetro.com.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – A public hearing on an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022 Cass County Budget will take place during Tuesday’s meeting of the Cass County Board of Supervisors. Following the hearing, the Board will vote on adopting resolutions for the FY 22 Budget Amendment and Appropriations. The hearing begins at 9-a.m. in the Supervisor’s Board Room at the Cass County Courthouse.

In other business, the Supervisors will hear from Cass County Engineer Trent Wolken, and act on approving the plans for a bridge rehabilitation project (L-289-73-15) with the City of Atlantic. They’ll also act on approving the end of a probationary employment status and set the pay rate for the remainder of FY22, for an Auditor’s Assistant who was hired in Oct., 2021.

The Board will discuss and possibly consider action on a Cass County Rebate Program for new, non-residential construction in rural Cass County. They will also hear a report from County Sanitarian Jotham Arber (Guthrie County Health Dept.), discuss the FY2023 Budget, and hear an update on environmental health. If candidates are available, the Board will act on appointing members to serve on: the Condemnation in Eminent Domain Committee; Cass County Zoning Commission; A Brighton Township Trustee, and a Pleasant Township Clerk.

As time allows, the Supervisors will take into consideration and possibly act on budget matters/requests.

(Radio Iowa) – A new study shows Iowa has one of the nation’s lowest drug overdose death rates, despite a significant rise in the state’s numbers. Ben Miller, president of Well Being Trust, says nearly 92-thousand Americans died from overdoses in 2020, an astounding 31-percent increase over the 2019 rate and the largest year-over-year increase on record. Miller says Iowa’s figures were far lower than other states, but also saw a dramatic boost. “What we saw was a 25% increase in the number of Iowans who died by drug overdose,” Miller says. “It’s about 432 people, and while that may not seem like a lot of folks, it’s a tremendous number of people when you consider that it’s almost a six-fold increase over the last decade.”

While Iowa’s death rates were among the country’s lowest, Miller says the figures are still menacing. “If you consider the national average is about 28.3 deaths per 100,000, Iowa came in during 2020 at 14.3, so that’s very good news,” Miller says. “The problem is, the trends continue to go in the wrong direction. While you’re lower than other states, we continue to see more lives lost each year to a preventable cause.” Iowa is doing several things right, Miller says, like increasing access to naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal or “rescue” drug. “You currently have a legislature that is looking at bipartisan ways to increase access,” Miller says. “While a lot of their conversations have been around increasing psychiatric beds, it’s a good start to have your legislature at least recognize that this is, indeed, an issue.”

There are also fewer prescription opioids being prescribed, he says, and Iowa has a prescription monitoring program. Miller says overdose death rates have been rising nationwide since 1999 and he fears the era of COVID-19 is going to be the worst yet. “What the pandemic has done, it’s been like gasoline on an open flame. It’s made things that we knew were a problem much worse,” Miller says. “In preliminary data that we’ve seen from the CDC for 2021, we are watching an exponential increase in the number of people that we’ve lost to drug overdose in the country.” The study was conducted by Well Being Trust and Trust for America’s Health.

Link to full report:
https://wellbeingtrust.org/news/u-s-drug-overdose-deaths-increased-by-31-percent-in-2020-up-56-percent-for-synthetic-opioids/

(Radio Iowa) – The Sioux City school board will consider at their meeting today (Monday) revising a policy to allow the superintendent to enact a temporary mask mandate for an individual school building. Superintendent Paul Gausman says it would update the policy that’s used for other emergencies to allow him to respond to increases in COVID cases. “That policy has been in place for years and years and years to deal with inclement weather and other things. Obviously, at the time the policy was originally crafted facemasks weren’t something that would even be considered — but they are today. Gausman says the pandemic has hit some school buildings harder than others. “There was one building last week that we were watching really closely. No because of student numbers — but because of staff numbers….we have to have enough staff in there to serve those students,” Gausman says.

Gausman says the policy will be flexible based on the changing conditions.”We are talking about a time-limited mask mandate for a specific building as an example. So, the school board would give me the authority to say that the numbers have climbed to a certain level in this building, I’m going to put a mask mandate in place for a week,” Gausman says. “Those numbers come back down again we’ll move on afterward without that mask mandate still in place. Or if they just don’t move at all, then we will extend it for another week. And so that’s how this will feel.”

He says they hope to keep the buildings open that aren’t being badly affected by COVID while dealing with those that are. Gausman says they will ask for parents to help by sending students to school with a good mask. The school board will consider the measure tonight (Monday)