(Atlantic, Iowa) – A public hearing was held during Wednesday evening’s City Council meeting, in Atlantic. The hearing was with regard to the sale of city-owned property at 901 Birch Street, a dilapidated home with a large retaining wall, broken windows, a bad roof and other issues. There were no comments received from the public in writing or otherwise. Prior to taking a roll-call vote on passing a Resolution approving the sale to Charles (CJ) Adams for of $5,350, the Council discussed and all agreed that, as Councilman Pat McCurdy said, “it’s a good deal.

Adams has said he intends to “flip” the property (rehabbing the home to make it saleable and profitable). City Administrator John Lund has indicated selling the lot would yield a triple-profit for the City: Cash up-front; Increased property value if Adams chooses to sell it; and a serious liability property would be removed from the City’s books. In other business, Angie Strotman, Fox Engineering Director of Marketing, in Ames, presented Councilman Jim Behrens with a check for $500. She explained the check is the result of a meeting of the Iowa League of Cities last September, in Coralville.

Angie Strotman w/Fox Engineering presents a “check” to Councilman Jim Behrens.

Strotman said also she coincidentally met Behrens before his name was even drawn.

She made it clear that she was not the person who drew his name for the prize. Fox Engineering by-the-way, were the designers of the City’s wastewater treatment plant. Behrens is donating the $500 to the fire department, to be used as part of their extrication equipment fundraiser.  The Council then heard a presentation from Kristine Stokes, Community Development Specialist with the Southwest Iowa Planning Council (SWIPCO), with regard to a Community Development Block Grant – CV (Covid) opportunity for the City’s Food Pantry, to help them pay for food in 2022.

Kristine Stokes

Funds for the grant come from the CARES Act for Covid relief, of which Iowa received $31.3-million to implement the CDBG grants, which are processed through IEDA (The Iowa Economic Development Authority).

The City of Atlantic would simply act as a flow-through agency for any funds that might come from the grant, if it is approved. The Food Pantry/Food Bank cannot apply for the funding on its own. The Atlantic Food Pantry, Stokes said, has been serving the community for nearly 40-years (It was founded in 1982). It has around 30 volunteers. Stokes said there’s been no let-up in the demand for food, especially since the beginning of the pandemic.

The Food Pantry distributes food every Thursday. SWIPCO would serve as the applicant on behalf of the food pantry, which makes the pantry a sub-recipient of the grant funding. Already 38 letters have been received in support of the application.The Council agreed in principal to support the grant application, but since it wasn’t on their agenda for official approval, they couldn’t act on it. Instead, the food pantry will come up on the Council’s agenda in December to conduct a public hearing for the CDBG application, and for the grant application to be processed by SWIPCO.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowans are warned to be careful when scanning Q-R codes with their phones. Those squares with the jumbled black-and-white dots and lines that resemble a game of Tetris can be helpful in getting to menus, websites and coupons, but they can also mean trouble. Consumer protection expert Michael Domke says always check where that link is going before you click “okay” on your phone.

Domke says, “It’s important to make sure when you are scanning those codes that it’s taking you to the location that you wanted to go to, or appears to at least.” Scanning malicious codes could open up your phone to malware, hackers or other problems. If you end up with malware on your phone, Domke says you could have to factory reset your device, in the worst case.

“The loss that you’re going to suffer through maybe one of those previous state restarts is going to be far less than letting the malware run rampant and having somebody steal all your information,” he says. If you’re unsure about a code, use your phone’s Q-R software to scan it or use an anti-malware program. Domke says to treat Q-R codes like any link you might get in an email — if you don’t trust it, don’t scan it.

(Radio Iowa) – The State Board of Education discussed the shortage of teachers this (Wednesday) morning during its meeting in Des Moines. Some districts have had to cancel classes due to a lack of teachers or substitutes, and some are looking at extending the Thanksgiving break due to shortages. Department of Education director Ann Lebo mentioned the issue while updating the board on her webinar with school superintendents. “I think most people would not be surprised that the primary topic this month was on staff shortages, and some of the conversations around what some of the solutions might be available there,” Lebo says.

She says the Ed Department is gathering information on the issue. “What is the experience of shortages, and what are some potential solutions. That is being led a lot by a teacher shortage task force group,” she says. The task force group is expected to report to the Board of Ed in December. Board member Mike May of Spirit Lake says it is an issue that has to be addressed as soon as possible. “We’re at critical mass now — we’re not talking about just a small problem — we are talking about a critical problem. And my question for you, what are we doing about it? How can we contribute to solving that issue?,” May asked. “When we are closing schools now in Iowa because we don’t have enough teachers — we know that some of that is COVID-related — but it is also because of the huge drop in the number of kids who are actually choosing education as a major.”

Lebo says they have to develop solutions on two fronts. “There’s kind of two pieces of it too — it’s the recruitment and retention. So when we talk about some of the recommendations that might come from the teacher shortage workgroup we are focused more on maybe the recruitment and pathways,” according to Lebo. “But then it’s the retention aspect as well and what sort of big ideas do we have that might change the narrative a little bit in terms of the profession, what that looks like and what the deeds are. So, we look forward to continuing to engage in that conversation.”

Lebo says the teacher shortage is also part of the larger labor shortage in the state of Iowa and how to prepare students to fill the shortages.

(Radio Iowa) – The number of Covid patients in Iowa hospitals has increased for the second straight week. The Iowa Department of Public Health’s weekly report shows the Covid patient count in Iowa hospitals is 544. More than a fifth of those patients are in intensive care. In the past 24 hours, 99 Covid-positive patients were admitted to an Iowa hospital. A year ago, Iowa hospitals were dealing with more than 15-hundred Covid patients — the peak during the pandemic.

On November 16th of last year, the governor delivered a rare statewide address, ordering restaurants to close at 10 p.m., limiting the size of crowds and urging Iowans to take precautions to stop the spread of the virus. By November of last year, officials had confirmed more than two-thousand Iowans had died of Covid. Today, the death toll is more than three and a half times higher. By the middle of this week, state officials had confirmed 72-hundred-68 Iowans have died of Covid.

The total number of confirmed Covid cases is on the rise in Iowa, with more than nine-thousand Iowans testing positive this past week. Children under the age of 18 account for more than 20 percent of the week’s positive Covid test results.