(Greefield, Iowa) – The Adair County Sheriff’s Office reports two arrests took place last Thursday, Feb. 29th. 36-year-old Lee Delmar Goll, of Ankeny, was arrested at the Adair County Jail on an Adair County Felony warrant for Harassment in the 1st Degree. Goll was being held without bond in the Adair County Jail until seen by a judge.

And, 44-year-old Tanya Lynn Funke, of Stuart, was arrested Feb. 29th in Casey, for Violation of a No Contact Order/Contempt of Court. She was transported by Adair EMS to the Adair County Hospital, for treatment of a bloody nose and additional medical treatment.The Sheriff’s report noted she showed signs of being under the influence of alcohol, and allegedly under the influence of illegal substances consistent with methamphetamine use.

Once discharged from the hospital, Funke was arrested on the No Contact/Contempt charge, because she was not allowed to be at the residence in Casey, due to alleged offense of Domestic Abuse Assault. She was released March 1st on a $1,000 cash or surety bond.

(Radio Iowa) – A Des Moines Register Mediacom Poll has found 56 percent of Iowans have a favorable opinion of the state’s nine Area Education Agencies. The A-E-As provide special education services, teacher training and other services to Iowa school districts. In early January Governor Kim Reynolds said the A-E-As are failing students with disabilities and she proposed major changes in how A-E-As operate, including an end to some services she says schools can get from the private sector or hire staff to provide. The Iowa House has approved its own bill which would keep the A-E-As the sole provider of special education services for schools. It calls for creation of a task force to study the A-E-As and pushes back the timeline for changes in non-special ed services provided by the A-E-As.

Representative Skyler Wheeler of Hull says he and other House Republicans met with parents, superintendents, A-E-A employees and education groups to get to this point. “We’ve worked diligently and I am proud of the work that we have done,” Wheeler said. “…This bill does not change anything with special education. It does not dismantle the AEA system.” Wheeler says as the parent of a daughter with autism he knows how important A-E-A services are to families and that’s why he used his authority as House Education Committee chairman to permanently table the governor’s plan.

“We killed the other bill and started from scratch,” Wheeler says. “…I, too, have a very high opinion of the AEAs. This bill came to use as a way to look at how do we improve outcomes for our students and specifically students with disabilities.” The bill passed the House late last week with the support of 53 Republicans. Nine Republicans and all Democrats in the House opposed it. Representative Molly Buck, a Democrat from Ankeny, is a teacher who questioned why the governor decided to propose such major changes.

“No one campaigned on this issue. The AEAs were blindsided…and I can tell you schools and teachers felt really blindsided, too.” Senate Republicans have developed their own proposal for A-E-A changes that more closely resembles the governor’s bill. In the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll, 20 percent of those surveyed have an unfavorable view of A-E-As.

(Guthrie Center, Iowa) – Guthrie County Deputy Sheriff/Jail Administrator Jesse Swensen, today (Monday) released the Feb. 2024 Jail stats. Swensen said “February was a decent month. We processed 67 inmates through the facility during the month. We held 36 out of county inmates for different periods of time. We brought in $31,500 from holding out of county inmates.”

Detailed information can be found through the PDF links shown below:

February Monthly Summary

February Average Population

February Billing

(Radio Iowa) – Johnson County’s GuideLink Center is starting its third year of providing mental health and substance abuse treatment and four-thousand admissions later, the data shows more walk-ins than expected. About 700 of the facility’s admissions came from law enforcement, while more than one-thousand came from health care providers. GuideLink’s Faraji Hubbard coordinates recovery at the center.

“Our first responders, our officials are able to connect with individuals who are struggling and they have that option to come to GuideLink,” Hubbard says, “and that is the gift.” Hubbard says instead of inadequate care, jail or a trip to the emergency room, there are options, like a chance to get help. Medical Director Monika Jindal says people are becoming more aware of these services and are making use of them, even outside of a crisis.

“GuideLink was originally designed to be jail diversion and ER diversion, and I think we have done some of that,” Young says, “but I think a lot of what we’re seeing is that the pandemic certainly exacerbated mental health needs.” Over the past three years, some 14-hundred people walked in for service.

WASHINGTON, March 4, 2024 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today (Monday) announced that four school districts in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, and Ohio received awards for their trailblazing and innovative efforts to improve the nutritional quality of meals for their students. This announcement was made in front of nearly 850 school nutrition professionals at the School Nutrition Association Legislative Action Conference during National School Breakfast Week. The school districts are the first winners of Healthy Meals Incentives Recognition Awards, jointly created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Action for Healthy Kids as part of USDA’s Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative, also known as HMI. These awards celebrate school districts who embrace opportunities to take their school meals to the next level.

The four awardees—Clear Lake Community School District in Iowa; Sandy Valley Local School District in Magnolia, Ohio; Petersburg School District in Alaska; and Regional School Unit 89 in Stacyville, Maine—along with 260 other small and/or rural school districts also received HMI grants last summer to enhance the nutritional quality of their school meals.

The Clear Lake Community School District (Iowa) is recognized as a “Lunch Trailblazer” for reducing sodium in their menu items through creative strategies such as sourcing low- or no-sodium products, increasing the use of fresh local foods, and enhancing flavors with custom spice blends. Julie Udelhofen, food service director, Clear Lake Community School District, said “We’ve been hosting monthly taste tests for our students, which feature locally grown foods. These events are a wonderful opportunity to introduce our students to new produce items as well as show our students that their opinions matter to us.”

For more information about the awardees, please visit the HMI Awardee Spotlight webpage.

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa [WHO-TV]— A Marshalltown 18-year-old is facing charges after officials say he led law enforcement on a chase exceeding 120 miles per hour through three counties over the weekend. Around 6:48 p.m. on Saturday a Marshall County deputy noticed a vehicle driven by Anthony Harding traveling at a high rate of speed in the 500 block of South 18th Avenue in Marshalltown.

The Marshall County Sheriff’s Office said the deputy tried to make a traffic stop and the car pulled over and stopped, but Harding sped away when the deputy tried to approach the vehicle. The chase went out of Marshall County and into Grundy County, then back into Marshall County before ending in Tama County. The Marshall County Sheriff’s Office said Harding was going faster than 120 miles per hour during the chase. Harding tried to turn off the car’s headlights multiple times to avoid detection, however, the Iowa State Patrol aircraft relayed directions to officers. The vehicle came to a stop when it suffered engine troubles. Harding was arrested at the scene. Two adult passengers and one juvenile passenger were briefly detained but then released after a short investigation.

Harding is facing multiple charges including eluding and operating while intoxicated. He is currently being held in the Marshall County Jail. The Sheriff’s Office said Harding was on a temporary home visit from the Iowa State Training School in Eldora at the time of the incident. He was being held at the facility in the custody of Juvenile Court Services in connection to a separate case.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa’s life expectancy is now in the 80s according to a University of Iowa study. It’s one part of a “megatrend” regarding age in the state. The report also finds Iowa now has the highest percentage of residents over 80. By 2030 those 65 and older could outnumber people 18 and younger. According to UI Professor of Health Policy & Research Brian Kaskie, the changes are thanks to resources Iowa has to offer that have made it a good place to grow older.

He says scattered across Iowa are age friendly areas that are especially accommodating for older Iowans. These areas have an abundance of resources like accessible healthcare facilities. However, the study also found Iowa’s younger population is shrinking. The state could be approaching a point where one in five Iowans are above 65 years old. That could lead to problems down the line, as more Iowans retire, there’s fewer people to fill their jobs.

This could result in older Iowan’s postponing their retirement to combat the worker shortage. Others may need to keep working out of necessity, as a longer life expectancy can also mean people needing to save more for a longer retirement. Not all could be able to work. Those 65 and older are more vulnerable to age-related conditions which could bar them from being able to work.