(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic School District’s Board of Education will meet 5:30-p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 7th, in the Atlantic High School Media Center. The Consent Agenda/Action items include approving the resignations of:

• Michelle Fritz, Middle School Teacher (effective at the end of the current school year)
• Sarah Rose, H.S. Counselor (effective at the end of the current school year)
• Maria Pearson, M.S. Librarian (effective at the end of the current school year)

And, Contract Recommendations and/or Letters of Assignment for:

• Volunteer Coaches for 2024 Spring Athletic Programs
• Caine Page, Substitute Van/Suburban Driver
• Lori Hayes, Schuler Sped Para, long-term sub (February-End of School year).

The Board will also act on the advertising of, & the hiring for, a Director of Student Services.

The meeting will be available to view on You Tube.

(Radio Iowa) – Fort Dodge leaders may soon add a franchise fee to utility bills to help pay for hiring more police officers. Police Chief Dennis Quinn says Fort Dodge experienced seven homicides last year, and that’s unusual for his city of 25-thousand. “We’ve had a pretty rough year as a community,” Chief Quinn says, “with the level of violence that we’ve had.” The city council approved the first reading of a plan to add a five-percent franchise fee to pay for eight new officers, an increase in the force of 20-percent.

Many communities and counties across the state turn to franchise fees on electric and gas bills for extra funding. Quinn says it’s an effort to be proactive. “Anytime you get into money can be contentious and I understand that, too, I have bills to pay, just like everybody else does,” Quinn says, “but this is something that we need. If there was another way the city could do this, we would do that.”

Fort Dodge City Manager David Fierke says the new fee would raise about two-point-four million dollars a year, with part of the money also going toward property tax relief and quality-of-life services like the library, art museum, and senior center. Fierke says new state tax laws now limit the money communities can levy.

“There really isn’t another way to do this,” Fierke says, “without a significant reduction in quality of life and other services.” Fierke says if the city council gives its full support, customers could see the franchise fee on their utility bills as soon as this summer.

(Radio Iowa) – The Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce had canceled this year’s “Color the Wind Kite Festival” that was scheduled for February 17th.

Chamber officials in a statement say consistent above-average temperatures in recent weeks have made the ice unsafe to host the festival that drew nearly 20,000 people to Clear Lake last year. The festival showcases a collection of gigantic inflatable kites flown by dedicated enthusiasts from all corners of the United States.

(Photo courtesy of the Color the Wind Kite Festival.)

This is the third time in the festival’s 24-year history that it has had to be canceled due to deteriorating ice conditions, with the first time in 2013 and the other time being in 2017.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says she will send another group of state law enforcement agents and Iowa National Guard soldiers to the US-Mexico border, but she’s waiting to coordinate the timing with Texas officials. “Twenty-five governors have said they’re going to stand with Governor Abbott and do what this president refuses to do,” Reynolds said today during a news conference at the Iowa Capitol.

Reynolds plans to use federal pandemic relief funds to pay for the mission. Reynolds was among a dozen Republican governors who were in Texas Sunday in support of Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s actions at the border. “The reality is we don’t know who is entering our country, but we know what they’re capable of…It’s why Governor Abbott has stepped up to defend his state, his people and truly our nation,” Reynolds said. “For three years Texas has been on the front line of the most serious national security and humanitarian crisis of our time.”

Governor Kim Reynolds speaking at a news conference on Feb. 5, 2024. (RI photo)

In 2021, Reynolds sent a group of state troopers and investigators to assist Texas officials at the border for two weeks. Last year, the governor deployed 109 Iowa National Guard soldiers and 31 state law enforcement officials to Texas for a month. Reynolds does not expect the bipartisan plan developed by U-S Senate negotiators to toughen immigration rules to pass. She said President Biden already has the authority to act. “We do not need a new law,” Reynolds said. “He needs to follow the existing law. He is not denying illegal entry into the country.”

Reynolds told reporters two Chinese nationals were arrested in rural Iowa last week in connection with what investigators describe as a $30 million nationwide fraud case. “One of the individuals charged is believed to have entered the country illegally through the southern border months before his arrest,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said 26 of the state’s drug investigations last year were linked to the Mexican drug cartels.