(Radio Iowa) – The man accused of killing an Algona Police Officer last September is asking for his trial to be moved out of Kossuth County. Forty-three-year-old Kyle Lou Ricke is asking for a change of venue for his first-degree murder trial, which is scheduled to begin in late June.

In his motion, Attorney Matthew Pittenger states that media coverage of the case was intense following the shooting death of Officer Kevin Cram on September 13th, 2023. He says that publicity has created a substantial likelihood that a fair and impartial jury can not be impaneled from Kossuth County or any surrounding county.

The state will file a written response to the motion before a judge makes a ruling. Ricke is currently scheduled to have a pretrial conference on May 31st. His trial is scheduled to begin on June 25th, pending the outcome of this motion.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Atlantic Trees Forever today (Tuesday) announced that the spring tree vouchers are no longer available. They have all been used. The limited number went in just a couple days.

Atlantic Trees Forever would like to thank those that used the voucher. They have never had the vouchers go so quickly before. They realize with all the tree removals many more people were looking to get trees replaced.

Atlantic Trees Forever would also like to thank the Atlantic HyVee for their support of the tree vouchers. The goal is to do vouchers again next spring and hopefully we will be able to do more at that time.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Agriculture has distributed over three-and-a-half MILLION dollars to 14 water quality projects in urban areas. One of the projects is designed to limit runoff into Smith Lake in Algona. Kossuth County Conservation Chairman Kendall Stumme says a parking lot at the park’s Water’s Edge Nature Center was paved last year.

“Which led to a lot of the rainwater running directly through a drain into Smith Lake and so we wanted to protect the lake and one of the ways to do this was by the construction of a bioretention cell.” The project has received a 24-thousand dollar state grant and the county conservation board must provide matching funds.

“We’ve already taken bids on the project and hope to start in the month of May,” Stumme says, “and have the project completed by the end of June.” A bioretention cell is a shallow basin for stormwater that uses soil and vegetation to filter runoff. Stumme says native grasses and wildflowers will be part of the one in Algona.

“Our main goal was just to protect Smith Lake, the sediment and so forth coming from the parking lot,” Summe says, ‘but it also will be a good opportunity, since it is rirhgt adjacent to the Nature Center and what with all of the field trips that we have, where we can show students and anybody, really, that’s interested how stormwater waste treatment happens.”

Water’s Edge Nature Center in Algona (Photo courtesy of Kossuth County Conservation Board, which managed the center.)

The Des Moines suburb of Altoona got the largest grant — half a MILLION dollars — to help reduce soil erosion and stormwater drainage from a 214-acre area into Townsend Pond, which is in a city park. The City of Durant got a nearly half a MILLION dollar grant for a project to capture and filter stormwater before it drains in a local creek. Belle Plaine is getting a quarter of a MILLION dollar grant to help build a wetland area around the community’s field of water wells.

Last year the state began providing bottled water to Belle Plaine residents as a farmer rerouted a stream that drained into the area around the community’s four water wells. Bloomfield is getting a more than 200-thousand dollar grant to support installation of permeable pavers and bioretention cells around sidewalks around the city square. The cities of Clive, Des Moines, Hudson, Jesup, Johnston, Perry, Urbandale and Waterloo also received grants for urban water quality projects.

(Radio Iowa) – The effort to sell off the assets of Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant will fall short of the amount needed to pay off the 26 million dollar loan it took from the U-S Ag Department in 2016. The chair of Iowa Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees, Bob Miller, says they attempted to raise the money by selling off the buildings and other items.

“The remaining assets did not bring the value that they were appraised at when the loan was taken out in 2016,” he says. The Mount Pleasant Municipal Utilities expected to close on its purchase the old gymnasium, which is the last unsold building. The school was closed last year and the sales of the real-estate thus far have generated three-point-six million dollars.

“Iowa Wesleyan does not have the ability to pay it back. We have no remaining assets to pay it back,” Miller says. “Banks have bad debts. They have to write off losses. And there’s nothing remaining that can be done about it.” The board aims to close its books of the school by the end of May.

(Radio Iowa) – It’s prom season in Iowa, time for tuxedos, gowns and corsages — as well as after-prom parties. Trooper Paul Gardner, with the Iowa State Patrol in Fort Dodge, says those late-night bashes can be a recipe for disaster.  “One thing we really need to discourage is attending parties and get together s that involve alcohol,” Gardner says, “because it seems like that is the number-one contributing factor, when it comes to getting teens in trouble, when they’re involved in car crashes.” A report from Mothers Against Drunk Driving finds 31-percent of all fatal crashes involving teenage drivers also involve alcohol, while 84-percent of teens believe their friends are more likely to drive impaired than to call their parents for a ride.

“We need to make sure that any teenagers who are going to these parties stay sober, because if they’re caught underage in possession of alcohol, they can get cited for being a minor in possession,” Gardner says. “We also need to discourage going to parties that involve alcohol because we do have a social host law in Iowa where the homeowner or whoever’s running the party can also be criminally charged.” As the weather gets warmer, traffic on Iowa’s roads typically picks up.

Iowa State Patrol photo

“The days are getting longer so we do see traffic tend to go later into the night,” Gardner says. “We haven’t had too many problems as of yet with teenage drivers, so let’s hope we keep that trend. So far, every prom, I have not heard of any major incidents that have happened.”

Some Iowa parents are turning to “safe prom promises,” having their teens sign a document, vowing to stay alcohol- and drug-free, and to never drive impaired or ride with an impaired driver.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Supreme Court has directed a lower  court to do more fact finding to determine if State Auditor Rob Sand violated Iowa’s public records law. The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously reversed a district court ruling that Sand was legally justified in denying a public records request for email communications between two reporters and the state auditor’s staff. Sand says the ruling is disappointing. “We have an obligation in the law in Iowa that’s unique for our office in that we can’t turn over a lot of material,” Sand said. “In fact if we do, by law in Chapter 11, some people in our office would have to get fired for turning some things over.”

The Kirkwood Institute, a conservative law firm, sued Sand, a Democrat in 2011. The lawsuit challenged Sand’s explanation that the emails were part of an audit. The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled Sand properly withheld one email, but must provide the district court with more evidence for why he withheld nine others. Sand says the standards for gauging when a public record may be released are higher for his office because of the tips it receives about wrongdoing in state and local government.  “We’re going to keep following those laws to make sure that everybody in Iowa knows that I would rather be slandered in court than have them think that I would just hand over emails where they’re blowing the whistle,” Sand says.

In its ruling, the Iowa Supreme Court said it is not persuaded that each of the nine emails are covered by the exemption, as some were in the form of a request from the reporter for information from the Auditor’s office. Iowa’s highest court has directed Sand to provide specific evidence to the district court that each email was related to an audit. In a written statement, the Kirkwood Institute’s founder says the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling paves the way for holding Sand accountable.