Des Moines, Iowa –The Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs has announced its latest investments in building culturally vibrant communities and opened a new opportunity for cities and regions seeking to be designated as an Iowa Great Place. The department awarded a total of $250,000 in Strengthening Communities grants, which will benefit seven rural Iowa communities: Clinton, Hampton, Keokuk, Lake City, Maquoketa, Red Oak and Stanton.

The Montgomery County Family YMCA, Red Oak is receiving a $35,000 grant for a project that will focus on the replacement of the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning units. The upgrades could help the YMCA save up to 20 percent in electrical costs. Stanton Friends, also known as the Stanton Viking Center, in Stanton, is receiving a $10,000 grant for a project centered on the construction of an outdoor basketball court, a proposal brought forward by students and community members. The court will be located along the Greenbelt Walking Trail on the city’s east side.  You can read about the five other grant awards, HERE.

Strengthening Communities grants support facility renovation and construction projects that promote youth development, healthy living and social responsibility in communities with fewer than 28,000 residents. The grants are made possible by an appropriation from the Iowa Legislature through the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund. In addition to awarding the new grants, the department is encouraging Iowa communities to apply to be designated as a new or continuing Iowa Great Place.

Through the Iowa Great Places program, the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs recognizes communities that have developed bold visions around developing their creative and cultural assets and formed the plans, partnerships and projects to make those visions a reality. Once designated as an Iowa Great Place, communities may apply for competitive grant funding, participate in professional development opportunities, and receive technical assistance from the department along with additional funding consideration from other state agencies.

The application round is now open and applications for new designations will be accepted until May 2. The Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs maintains a portfolio of programs dedicated to placing arts, culture, history, film and historic preservation at the center of community revitalization efforts – an approach sometimes described as ‘creative placemaking’.

Along with the Strengthening Communities and Iowa Great Places grant programs – both administered by its arts division, the Iowa Arts Council – the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs manages the Iowa Cultural and Entertainment Districts program; awards tax credits to support the development of historic properties through the State Historic Preservation Office; awards grants and provides technical assistance through the State Historical Society of Iowa; and supports film and media projects that showcase Iowa’s creative places through Produce Iowa, the State Office of Media Production.

More information about the creative placemaking grants and community designation programs can be found online at iowaculture.gov.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Business Council’s fourth-quarter Economic Outlook Survey shows a lot of optimism among its members. Executive Director Joe Murphy says anything over 50 on their scale is positive — and this time it was nearly 69. “This is our second-highest score ever, second highest score only to the second quarter of 2018,” Murphy says. The index is based on expectations for sales, capital spending, and employment for the next six months. Capital spending saw the largest increase. “A leading indicator for us is really capital spending. To see companies investing in their own organizations, investing in infrastructure, hard assets — things like that. To see such a big increase in that over the course of one quarter I think is really good news for Iowa’s economy,” he says. “It shows that our businesses are investing in their companies and their people and really investing to meet that surging demand that we’ve seen for a long time now.”

Murphy says this is a positive sign things are picking back up. He says things have been very cautious in the last four to six quarters as businesses have been waiting to see what would happen. “I think this is really showcasing that our recent surging economy is real, and that it gives us a ton of momentum as we move forward,” he says. The I-B-C is made up of executives from 22 of the state’s largest businesses. While the business climate is positive — Murphy says there are still some obstacles in the way. “There are a few things that continue to give us great concern — and the supply chain is definitely one of those,” according to Murphy. “our members have stated that they don’t expect the supply chain to get much better at all over the next six months. So that is obviously a concerning point for us as those choke points and logistics logs remain clogged.”

The other big hurdle continues to be finding workers. “As we look at that situation we know that we’ve got to do things differently, and that’s why we’ve invested in a marketing campaign to try and attract new people into our state. A healthy state is a growing state — just like a healthy company is a growing company,” Murphy says. “And so we really need to be doing everything that we can and that’s why we are challenging all Iowa organizations to think out of the box and really try to bring in new talent outside of our borders.”

He says finding talented issues continue to be the number one concern among members.

(rural Council Bluffs, Iowa)  — One person suffered non-life threatening injuries after they were ejected from a vehicle during a three-car accident in Pottawattamie County, Thursday morning. KETV in Omaha reports the accident occurred at Highway 92 and Canoe Lane, just east of Council Bluffs.

Additional details are currently not available.

(Radio Iowa) – New work search requirements for laid off Iowa workers who’ve qualified for unemployment benefits go into effect Monday. Governor Kim Reynolds is hinting she’ll propose more changes.  “The unemployment code was written a long, long, long time ago when we were in a much different position,” Reynolds says, “and today we need to incentivize work, not pay people to stay home.”

Starting Monday, those who’ve qualified for unemployment checks will have to prove they’ve applied for at least three jobs each week in order to keep the benefits. The state’s Workforce Development agency has hired 18 new case managers who’ll advise the newly unemployed of career training and job openings. “We have more job openings than we have people on unemployment,” Reynolds says. Bolstering Iowa’s workforce is the common thread as Reynolds and legislators discuss beefing up job training programs and addressing the state’s shortage of child care clots and affordable housing.

“All business and industry talk to me about when I am traveling the state and I am in communities, I don’t care what size they are — small, medium, large — doesn’t matter what sector, they have great capacity for growth, they’ve had record years…supply chain is also having an impact, but workforce is by far their biggest issue,” Reynolds says. Iowa’s labor participation rate — the number of working-age people who have a job or are looking for one — has not bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. Iowa Federation of Labor president Charlie Wishman says having lawmakers tinker with the unemployment system doesn’t address that.

“I definitely think that there’s going to be a whole lot of action around trying to address this idea that we simply don’t have enough workers for the amount of jobs that are needed to make this state run,” Wishman says. “This is a problem that’s been building for a long time and it’s not a problem that’s going to be solved overnight.” The 2022 Iowa legislative session starts Monday. Governor Reynolds will outline her legislative priorities in the annual “Condition of the State” message on Tuesday night.