WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party has resigned after a disastrous caucus process beset by technical glitches led to a dayslong delay in reporting the results, inconsistencies in the numbers and no clear winner. Chairman Troy Price announced his resignation Wednesday, saying Iowa Democrats deserved better than what happened on caucus night.

After a breakdown in the Feb. 3 caucuses, it took until Feb. 6 for the state party to issue what it said are complete results. In those figures, Pete Buttigieg leads Bernie Sanders by 0.09 percentage points. The Associated Press hasn’t declared a winner because it is not confident in the accuracy of the results. A partial recanvass is also underway.

Members of the Cass County Conference Board will meet 5:15-p.m. Thursday, Feb. 13th, in the basement meeting room at the Cass County Courthouse. The main item on their agenda concerns a Budget Hearing.

Board of Supervisors’ Chair Steve Baier, says some adjustments were made to the original proposed budget presented at the January 23rd meeting. Primarily, the wages for FY 2021 were increased 2% over the current fiscal year.

Following the hearing, if there are no further amendments, the budget will be approved. If additional changes are made, another hearing will be needed.

(Radio Iowa) — Southwest Iowa was dealt a double blow with the announcement Tuesday of layoffs at two manufacturing plants in the area. The Eaton Corporation confirmed that its Shenandoah plant would be closing sometime this year. Shenandoah Chamber and Industry Association executive vice president, Gregg Connell, says the news of Eaton’s closing is no surprise, considering the company’s mass layoffs four years ago this month of 250 employees.

“And then we were told later that they were going to continues some gray line with maybe 50-60 employees. We were told that would probably last six months. We’re glad that it lasted four years, but that doesn’t lessen the impact,” Connell says. While losing the rest of the company’s workers is tough, Connell is already working on luring another company to the Eaton facility.

“You know, we’re positive about the future,” Connell says, “we are showing the Eaton building in the next few weeks to an out-of-state company. I can’t give any more information than that, but it’s a positive that we need to look at–even in the face of this negative news right now.” Officials with Red Oak’s American Hydraulics plant also announced Tuesday that 56 workers were being laid off at its facility.

Shawnna Silvius with the Montgomery County Development Corporation says the focus now is on finding new jobs for the idled employees. “That obviously is our number one,” said Silvius. “We want to keep these families together without any hiccups as best we can,” she says. “We want to get those folks re-employed, employed into meaningful employment with positions that they can grow in. And, sometimes it’s an opportunity for folks to retrain, and enter a different career field.”

Silvius hopes her agency can turn a negative situation into a positive one. “We know many of our employers are looking for quality workers,” Silvius says. “So, it can be a win-win. It’s hard when it hits at first, and I guess the goal is for us to wrap around all these people, love them where they are, and try to help them and their families get transitioned into something new.”

Montgomery County Development Corporation is hosting a Red Oak hiring fair event next Friday, February 21st from 1-to-4 p-m at Southwestern Community College’s Red Oak campus. Iowa Workforce Development services will be available at the event, as well as other information for the displaced workers.

Sheriff’s officials in Pottawattamie County, today (Wednesday), said an investigation into suspicious activity at the Avoca Mini-Mart, Tuesday, resulted in the arrest of a man from Lander, Wyoming. 33-year-old Aaron Russell Schucker was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance/1^st Offense, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

Late Tuesday night, a Deputy was dispatched to 406 Glass Street to conduct a welfare check. The individual in question – an unidentified 17-year old male – was located after crashing their vehicle at Highway 6 and Highway 59. The driver was placed under arrested for OWI/1st offense. He was then transported to Mercy Hospital for a committal.

The Atlantic High School Counseling Office and Iowa College Access Network (ICAN), will offer a free presentation Feb 20th, on career and college readiness. The presentation is for all sophomores, juniors and their parents. It offers students and parents a chance to receive help with any questions pertaining to career and college planing, financing college, and life after high school.

The program will be divided into two parts: College Planning, from 6-until 7-p.m., and Financing for College, from 7-until 8-p.m. Both will be held Thursday, Feb. 20th, in the Atlantic High School Auditorium. If you would like more information, please contact the AHS Counseling Office at 243-5358.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds isn’t commenting on accusations made against state officials in a federal lawsuit involving sexual arousal experiments performed on residents at the Glenwood Resource Center, a state care center for people with intellectual disabilities. Two doctors and other former employees of the facility sued a state agency and several officials Monday alleging conspiracy to silence complaints about sexual arousal research conducted by Jerry Rea. Rea is the former superintendent of the center. Reynolds says she can’t comment on the lawsuit. She wouldn’t answer questions about when she learned of experimentation on patients and how much of Rea’s background was checked before he was hired.

Atlantic, IA — Cass County Health System has been awarded a three-year term of accreditation in mammography as the result of a recent review by the American College of Radiology (ACR). Mammography is a specific type of imaging test that uses a low-dose X-ray system to examine breasts. A mammography exam, called a mammogram, is used to aid in the early detection and diagnosis of breast diseases in women. The ACR gold seal of accreditation represents the highest level of image quality and patient safety. It is awarded only to facilities meeting ACR Practice Parameters and Technical Standards after a peer-review evaluation by board-certified physicians and medical physicists who are experts in the field.

CCHS Mammography Staff picture left to right: Jessica Sandbothe, Carrie Schmitt, Mindi Macha, Sarah Olsen, Stephanie Drogo, and Stephanie Drees. (Photo submitted)

Image quality, personnel qualifications, adequacy of facility equipment, quality control procedures and quality assurance programs are assessed. The findings are reported to the ACR Committee on Accreditation, which subsequently provides the practice with a comprehensive report that can be used for continuous practice improvement. The ACR, founded in 1924, is a professional medical society dedicated to serving patients and society by empowering radiology professionals to advance the practice, science and professions of radiological care.

The College serves more than 37,000 diagnostic/interventional radiologists, radiation oncologists, nuclear medicine physicians, and medical physicists with programs focusing on the practice of medical imaging and radiation oncology and the delivery of comprehensive health care services. ###

(Radio Iowa) — Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz and his wife Mary have won the Robert D. Ray Pillar of Character Award for 2020. The award is given out by the Robert D. and Billie Ray Center at Drake University, which is named for the former governor and his wife. Center spokesperson Amy Smit says it is the highest honor given based on character.”An individual or individuals who have displayed good character as public role models. Past award recipients have included: Hayden Fry, Shawn Johnson, Peggy Whitson, the astronaut and just really great Iowans who are really great role models for us,” Smit says.

Kirk-and-Mary-Ferentz

Smit says individuals are nominated for the award.”The award is decided by our national advisory council. And this particular award is something Governor Ray was passionate about before be passed — that this award be presented to the Ferentz’s,” Wit explains. Kirk Ferentz has been Iowa’s head football coach for the past 21 seasons, making him the longest-tenured active coach in college football. “He’s really made an impact on so many youth over his career. It’s really astonishing when you think about the number of players who go through his program,” according to Smit. “He takes character very seriously, and has made a huge impact.”

Kirk and Mary Ferentz met during their high school days in Pennsylvania. The Ferentz’s have been married forty years and have five children and nine grandchildren. “Mary has been making an impact on her own. She’s raised over two million dollars for the University of Iowa’s Stead Family Children’s Hospital through her ladies football academy. So, she’s been just as busy after raising their five kids at home,” Smit says.

The award will be presented in April in West Des Moines. “We’ll be getting together on April 17th at our All-Star evening to present the award to Kirk and Mary. We’ll have about 600 people in attendance — where we get together and celebrate good character,” Smit says. Smit says the event is open to the public and you can find out more at: www.AllStarEvening.org.

MAQUOKETA, Iowa (AP) – City officials plan to ask residents to enroll in a program to monitor vapor contamination from a carcinogenic chemical that’s spread from a factory site in the eastern Iowa city of Maquoketa. The Telegraph Herald reported that the contamination stems from the operations of Clinton Machine Co., which built small engines in Maquoketa from 1950 into the 1990s. The factory used trichloroethene, commonly known as TCE, as a degreasing agent. Federal authorities have since determined that TCE is carcinogenic. Shelly Nellesen with the Iowa Natural Resources Department says the TCE in groundwater also creates the potential for indoor contamination.

If you notice an unusual number of marked and unmarked law enforcement vehicles in Atlantic this week, it’s because about two dozen people employed by nearly a dozen different agencies from across Iowa and the Midwest, are in town taking part in a Crime Scene Processing class held at the Atlantic Fire Station.

The class is presented by Forensic Education, based in Londonderry, NH. They also provide classes in Social Media, Right-to-Know, Interviews and Interrogations, and Credit Card Fraud, depending on the need of a law enforcement agency or agencies.

The three-day course in Atlantic began Tuesday, and concludes Thursday. The class is designed to teach law enforcement officers how to handle any crime scene, including a vehicle break-in, burglary, or a suspicious death.

Crime Scene Process pictures from Forensic Education’s website.

Topics covered include:

• Crime Scene Documentation and Photography
• Fingerprinting for All Surfaces
• Footwear, Tire and Tool Marks
• Trace Evidence – Light Sources, DNA Evidence, Blood Evidence

Attendees are offered hands-on training through practice exercises, with all instructional materials provided. The next classes on the topic will be presented Feb. 25th through the 27th, at the Maricopa Police Department, in Arizona, and April 21-23 in Pratt, Kansas.