(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic School Board’s regular monthly meeting takes place Wednesday in the High School Media Center. Their session begins at 5:30-p.m. and will be available for viewing on YouTube. Action items on their agenda include a request to advertise/hired a shared position with the City of Atlantic for a School Resource Officer (SRO), 24-25 Substitute wages and Supplemental Contracts.

Consent agenda items include approval of the following resignations:

• Cecily McCuen, Special Education
• Alexandra Statia, Kitchen
• Kerry Jepsen, Para (to take HS Secretary position)
• and Alyssa Boltz, Soccer coach.

Contract Recommendations and/or Letters of Assignment for the 2024-2025 School Year, include:

• 2024 Fall Sports Coaching Recommendations, Sponsor and Advisor positions
• New position: Jr. High Assistant Volleyball Coach (#2)
• Anna Pauley, 9th grade Volleyball
• and Lisa Sonntag, JV Volleyball.

View the full agenda here: PUBLIC AGENDA 06122024

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports five recent arrests. Today (Monday), Deputies arrested 18-year-old Jasmine Ameliana-Cadena, of Glenwood, on two warrants: Violation of a No Contact Order; and Violation of Probation. She was taken into custody at the Pottawattamie County Jail and held on a $1,300 bond.

On Sunday, 63-year-old Jacob Benny Garcia, of Council Bluffs, was arrested at the Pott. County Jail on a Mills County warrant for Insurance Fraud. His bond was set at $5,000. And, 22-year-old Tabitha Rae Brayman, of Council Bluffs, was arrested at the Pott. County Jail on Mills County warrants for Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree, and Violation of Probation. Her bond was set at $3,000.

At around 4:45-a.m. Saturday, 43-year-old Barbara Rose Riley, of Glenwood, was arrested on I-29, for Driving While Barred. (Bond: $2,000). And, at around 3:45-p.m. Thursday, 25-year-old Caleb Michael Solari, of Corning, was arrested at the Mills/Montgomery County Line, on a warrant for Failure to Appear on a Probation Violation charge. His bond was set at $2,500.

(Radio Iowa) – A federal judge plans to issue a ruling before July 1st on whether state officials may enforce an Iowa law to deport immigrants who’ve been deported before. The judge heard legal arguments in a Des Moines courtroom earlier today (Monday). Emma Winger, deputy legal director for the American Immigration Council, spoke during an online news conference this (Monday) afternoon.

“We’re here today because the state has tried to set up its own deportation system which, frankly, makes no sense,” she said, “and it’s clearly unconstitutional.” Winger and an attorney from the U-S Department of Justice told the judge immigrants who were previously deported could be arrested even if they now have legal permission to be in the country. “Ultimately these types of laws create absolute chaos and human suffering,” Winger said, “and have no place in our legal system.”

In a written statement, Iowa Attorney General said President Biden has refused to enforce immigration laws and Iowa is doing the job for him by passing this law. Patrick Valencia, the state’s deputy solicitor general, told the judge states have police power to enforce federal laws and Iowa’s law would not affect immigrants who’ve been granted legal status to stay in the United States. Winger says while federal law gives protection to those who’ve been deported and return with the permission of the federal government, the Iowa law does not have that exception.

“Even if it were true that this law were just enforcing federal standards, the state can’t do that,” Winger said. “The responsibility for enforcing federal immigration standards belongs solely to the federal government.” One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is an 18 year old high school student who was brought into the U-S as a child by her mother after her father was murdered and her sister kidnapped in another country. The young woman, who was deported as a child, is living in Iowa now after being granted asylum.

The federal government is suing to block similar illegal reentry laws in Texas and Oklahoma.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa National Guard plans to close the Shenandoah armory, shifting the 132 members of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry, and units from Sheldon and Sioux City to the guard’s new West Des Moines readiness center in 2025.

Shenandoah Mayor Roger McQueen says they were able to meet with the guard’s adjutant general, and other guard officials prior to Friday’s announcement.”They came down to personally come in and tell us about the closing mainly due to recruitment you know that has to have a number that they like to keep down there and that number had fallen and so they will relining a lot of their armories right now in the state. The move means the Iowa Guard won’t have a presence in Shenandoah for the first time in 145 years.

McQueen calls the armory’s pending closure “a sad deal.” “Nobody wants to lose anything you know in a town our size, but these have been happening all over the state, you know Corning, Algona, there’s some other smaller ones that have closed,” McQueen says. “And so yeah, it’s sad after all these years. That was one thing they wanted to make sure and stress that Shenandoah didn’t have any hard feelings or anything like that.”

Shenandoah National Guard Armory.

The mayor says there’s no ill feelings from the city toward the Iowa Guard.”You know times change and so you know we’ve appreciated everything they’ve done when they’ve been here. They’ve done a great job in the last two-three-four years of getting out in the public and so forth, but like I say things change and we wish them the best.” McQueen told guard officials the city is interested in the armory building. However, McQueen says it’s too early to discuss what the property’s acquisition would mean for the city, and what it would be used for.

Guard officials say the closure process includes an official sequence of events and timeline required by the Iowa Department of Public Defense and State Armory Board, with full divestiture by the spring of 2025. The guard indicates it will guide the city and state through key milestones that include the armory’s sale.

(Radio Iowa) – The woman who won the Iowa-based World Food Prize last fall has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Heidi Kuhn founded a non-profit called Roots of Peace in 1997. It works to remove landmines and restore ground ravaged by war so it can be used as agland. The head of a group in Azerbaijan nominated Kuhn for the Nobel Peace Price. Kuhn recently visited the country to launch a pilot project to clear an estimated one-and-a-half million landmines and revive an area where vineyards used to flourish.

Norman Borlaug, a Cresco native who was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in improving crop production and he helped found the World Food Prize 38 years ago. At last October’s World Food Prize ceremony in Des Moines, Kuhn said she intended to use the half a million dollars that came with the award to work on removing landmines in Ukraine. The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced next October.

Heidi Kuhn. (Roots of Peace photo)