(Shenandoah, Iowa) – A traffic stop early this (Wednesday) morning in Shenandoah resulted two people being arrested on drug charges. The Shenandoah Police Dept. reports the Shenandoah K9 Unit conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle with an equipment violation, at around 12:17-a.m., in the 800 block of Highway 59. During the incident, the K9 “Remmi” was deployed and alerted to the odor of narcotics.

Following an investigation, a passenger in the vehicle, 35-year-old Tamara Herrera-Alberto, of Shenandoah, was arrested for: Possession of a Controlled Substance (PCS)/Methamphetamine, and Poss. of Paraphernalia. She arrested also, on a valid arrest warrant issued out of Mills County, for a Controlled Substance Violation & Failure to Affix a Drug Tax Stamp, and two valid warrants out of Douglas County, Nebraska, for PCS.  Herrera-Alberto was being held in the Page County Jail on a $31,300 bond.

A second passenger in the vehicle, 33-year-old Ramon Nelson, of Omaha, was arrested for Possession of Paraphernalia. Nelson was cited into court and released from custody. Fremont County Sheriff’s Deputies assisted Shenandoah Police during the traffic stop.

(Radio Iowa) – Western Iowa towns that were hit hard by the 2019 floods are still working toward recovery. Hamburg and Pacific Junction are awaiting levee certifications to move their communities forward. As Hamburg puts the finishing touches on one levee, Mayor Cathy Crain is already focusing on how the small town can build another one. She says getting Hamburg out of the floodplain could transform its future. Crain says, “If we could do that, you have entirely changed a town and a county because we would have far more possibilities.”

Both towns hope they can use some of the state’s allotted infrastructure funding to assist in recovery efforts. Crain estimates her town still has over 70 projects to complete. “What we’ve always said is we just wanted a fighting chance,” she says. “This is a fighting chance.” Pacific Junction Mayor Andy Young says the major obstacle is levee certification, something that needs to be complete before the town can use its emergency funding. “Hopefully, we’ll be moving forward so we can get our town back or a resemblance of it,” Young says, “but, we’re making, we’re making it.”

The towns are also looking at how they can protect their communities from future disaster, which means finding funding for more flood protection barriers.

(reporting by Kendall Crawford, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – State data shows a record number of new businesses were launched in Iowa last year. Iowa law requires documents to be filed when a new business is formed in the state. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate’s office manages that online portal for business filings. “We’re seeing an upward trend. We have over 35,000 new businesses that were formed in 2021 alone and in the last three years it’s gone up, up and up,” Pate says. “And that’s in the middle of Covid and a downward economy.”

New business starts soared across the United States last year, to a record five-point-four million new business filings according to the Census Bureau. That’s a million more than 2020, which was also a record. Pate says as Iowa mirrors that upward trend, it shows creativity in the face of pandemic challenges. “Many of them, maybe, they have taken the attitude: ‘Well, I may as well start a business right now of my own because my employer that I had before Covid is not going to let me work,’ so they have to come up with a different plan and so they’ve stepped up and started their own businesses,” Pate says. “I think there are many of those kind of stories.”

Iowa businesses must file initial forms of organization with the state, then confirm twice a year that the business is still active. There are more than 260-thousand businesses operating in the state today. “We don’t have the software that would give us a hard and firm number, but I can tell you just from the sampling I’ve looked at it’s pretty consistent, obviously, with where the population is,” Pate says. “I mean you’re going to see more filings, more businesses in the larger counties, but we have seen growth in all the counties.”

Just over 25-thousand new businesses were started in Iowa in 2019. Nearly 27-thousand launched in 2020 and then there was a 30 percent jump in 2021, to more than 35-thousand new Iowa business starts last year.

(Radio Iowa) – A bill that would make it legal for all-terrain vehicles and off-road utility vehicles to travel on state and county highways appears to be on a fast track in the Iowa House. The legislation cleared initial review today (Tuesday) and is a priority for House State Government Committee chairman Bobby Kaufmann of Wilton. Kaufmann says A-T-Vs are allowed on the roads in 22 states, plus two-thirds of IOWA counties have local ordinances allowing A-T-Vs on local streets and roads.

“I want to make it clear that in every county that this has happened, the ensuing accidents and deaths and Armageddon’s that were predicted did not happen,” he says. Dan Kleen of the Iowa Off-Highway Vehicle Association says his group opposes the bill and believes county officials should decide which roads are safe for A-T-V traffic. “We think the numbers are low because it’s only been county roads, secondary roads — not on state highways,” he says. “You put a 35 mile per hour machine, no matter how big the roll bar or seat belt is with a 65 mile an hour semi coming up behind you, it’s not a good situation.”

Kaufmann says bicyclists and farm tractors are allowed on state highways and face greater danger than an A-T-V when a semi pops over the hill behind them. “I’m going to be in a lot more trouble on my John Deere 3010 and its lack of mobility and its lack of roll cage and the fact that my bare head will slam itself on the concrete,” Kaufmann says. Scott Minzenmeyer owns Recreational Motorsports in Anamosa, a business that services A-T-Vs. “We’re not asking to ride 20 miles down a state highway,” he says. “What we’re asking is to ride the most direct route from a county road or a city to get to another county road or a town.”

Steve Tebbe of the Jackson County A-T-V Club of Eastern Iowa says A-T-Vs are a growing form of recreation, but there’s one serious challenge.  “Getting fuel, food and other necessities in the towns and cities in the state of Iowa due to the fact that…many restaurants, convenience stores and other shops are on municipalities’ state highways,” he says. Bellevue Mayor Roger Michels says Highway 52 is the main north-south thoroughfare in his city, which means A-T-Vs have to drive out of their way to get into Bellevue.

“Opening this up would help for a lot of revenue for our businesses in town and everything else,” he says. Mark Maxwell, a representative of the Iowa Motorcycle Dealers Association, says the group is adamantly opposed to the bill. “These vehicles are not manufactured to be run on hard surface roads. They’re not. They don’t have highway tires on them. They don’t have anti-lock brakes,” he says. “They do not comply to the federal motor vehicle safety standards. That’s the facts.” Maxwell says county level decisions about where A-T-Vs may safely operate makes sense.

“As somebody who lives in Des Moines, I don’t want ATVs and UTVs on the streets of Des Moines,” Maxwell says. “I understand in the smaller communities it works well, and we have no problem with that, but one size does not fit all.” The bill is scheduled for debate in a House State Government Committee next week and Kaufmann says he aims to have it debated in the full House by the first week of February.