(Radio Iowa) – Seven people have now been arrested in connection to a large fight at an event center in Storm Lake on December 24th that left one man unconscious. On Sunday, Storm Lake Police arrested 22-year-old Isaiah Rivera of Cherokee after he surrendered himself to authorities. Rivera allegedly displayed a handgun during the incident and pointed it at other people inside the event center. Rivera left before police arrived that night.

Rivera has been charged with Participating in a Riot, Going Armed With Intent, and Assault While Participating in a Felony.In late December, 30-year-old Yusnavy Cruz of Storm Lake and 31-year-old Yoandri Barista Valdes of Lakeside were each arrested on a charge of Participating in a Riot. The alleged fight happened on the dance floor of the Oasis Event Center. A man was hit in the head with a chair and found unconscious.

Storm Lake Police are still trying to identify one other male suspect who was allegedly involved in the brawl.

(Radio Iowa) – The 2024 Iowa legislative session has begun with moments of silence to acknowledge the victims of last Thursday’s shooting at Perry High School — and House and Senate leaders are promising to focus on school safety.

No bills have been proposed at this point, but House Speaker Pat Grassley provided an outline of school safety measures Republicans support. “It means investing in school security. It means prioritizing school resources officers. It means protecting children’s mental health. It means teaching resilience over victimhood,” Grassley said, “and it means ridding our classrooms and school libraries of inappropriate material.”

Grassley cited the underlying reason for a response. “People choose Iowa because our state is viewed as safe,” Grassley said, “so when we see these senseless acts of violence in our own home state, it shakes us to the core.”

The Grand Staircase at the Iowa Capitol. (RI file photo)

House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst also issued a general call for action. “People at the end of this session should feel safer taking their kids to school in the morning than they do today. That’s our job,” Konfrst said. “Let’s work together to get something done.”

Konfrst said people are scared to be in public places. “It’s not enough to just move on,” Konfrst said. “Ahmir deserves better and so do all of our kids.”

The funeral for 11 year old Ahmir Jolliff — the 6th grader who was shot to death last Thursday — is scheduled for Thursday of this week Perry. Senate Democratic Leader Pam Jochum daughter died in 2018 and she said there is “no pain” like the loss of a child. “In our grief, though, we must ask tough questions and acknowledge hard truths,” Jochum said. “How do we tame violence in our country, violence that touched East High School in Des Moines less than two years ago and now Perry?”

Jochum said gun safety must be part of the discussion. “We must find a solution to gun violence,” Jochum said. “No child should go to school fearing for their lives.”

Senate Republican Leader Jack Whitver promised action on school safety in general, but shared no specifics. “While we can’t legislate away evil and get rid of all the bad things in this world, we keep our thoughts and prayers with those in Perry as we move forward and put in place policies to make our state better and stronger,” Whitver said.

Whitver singled out the gravely wounded Perry High School principal who tried to stop the 17-year-old shooting suspect, giving other students time to escape.”It is a remarkable demonstration of courage and self-sacrifice,” Whitver said. “Being a servant leader is easy to talk about, but in moments like these it is hard to do. It shows how leaders act in times of crisis. It shows how Iowans act to protect and defend each other.”

The lawmakers made their remarks during opening day speeches in the House and Senate. A couple of hours before the legislature convened, Governor Reynolds spoke about Perry during remarks at an Iowa GOP fundraiser. Reynolds said all Iowans stand with the victims and the Perry community during this time of grieving and recovery.

“Our hearts remain heavy with the unthinkable and senseless tragedy that unfolded last week at the Perry High School and we continue evert dat to keep the families of the victims and the Perry community in our prayers,” Reynolds says. “…We’ll continue to work with the community to make sure they have the whole of government behind them as they work through this heartbreaking time in our state’s history.”

(Radio Iowa) – After three consecutive winters dominated by the La Nina weather pattern, we’re now a few weeks into an El Nino winter, which state climatologist Justin Glisan says could very well mean significant changes ahead for Iowa’s weather. “We’re in a moderate-to-strong El Nino and we have a 54% chance of this being a historically strong El Nino, meaning, exceedingly warm sea surface temperature anomalies,” Glisan says. “When we look at wintertime conditions for El Nino, we typically see warmer temperatures through December, January, February.”

That falls in line with what happened in Iowa last month, as snowfall during December was far below normal in what’s usually the snowiest month of the year. Plus, Glisan says, December concluded nine-degrees warmer than average statewide. The last El Nino was in 2019 and Glisan says there’s a consistent pattern over the decades. “If we look back at strong El Nino events, going back to 1950, we’ve had seven,” Glisan says. “Six of those, we’ve seen generally wetter conditions across the state.”

Iowa has been mired in drought for more than three-and-a-half years, and Glisan says we experienced what he calls a “snow drought” during December, while a shift could be coming in the weeks ahead. “In El Nino and strong El Ninos, we generally see below-average snowfall across much of the state, but not necessarily drier conditions,” Glisan says. “We see more rainfall, we see more wintry mix-type of precipitations. So if you couple that together with the 30-year trend, there is a potential for wetter conditions through winter along with those warmer temperatures.”

From year to year, Glisan says the average temperature over 365 days usually doesn’t even vary by one degree, up or down, but 2023 ended more than two-degrees warmer than the norm in Iowa, putting it in the state’s top 20 warmest years on record.

On January 4th 2024 the Cass County Sheriff’s Office conducted multiple search warrants of properties located in Cass County and Montgomery County. The warrants stemmed from theft cases involving property in Nebraska and Iowa. The Cass County Sheriff’s Office was assisted by: Iowa State Patrol, ISP Auto Theft Division, ISP K9 division, ISP Motor Vehicle Enforcement, Gage County Sheriff’s Office (Nebraska), Montgomery County K9, Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, Atlantic Police Department, Cass County Drone Team, and Cass County Communications Center.

As a result of the investigations Lydell Murray, 46 of Griswold was charged with Theft 1st degree a class C felony. Murray was also charged with multiple traffic violations after attempting to evade law enforcement. The investigation is still ongoing and other charges are pending at this time.

**A criminal charge is merely and accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law**

(Radio Iowa) – Republicans gathered for a fundraising breakfast in Des Moines just before the Iowa legislature convened this (Monday) morning. This is the 8th year Republicans have held the governorship and a majority of seats in the Iowa House and Senate. Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver says Republicans aren’t afraid to take on tough issues. “I would challenge the legislators that are here today to continue that mentality,” Whitver said. “Continue to be bold and let’s continue to move this state forward.” House Speaker Pat Grassley says Republicans have an opportunity to ensure Iowa counters what he calls the “liberal creep” in Minnesota.

“Folks, the liberals are looking to the states. They’re seeing what we’re going at the state level and how successful we’ve been in states like Iowa and they’re starting to think: ‘Well, we can’t just do everything at the federal government. We have to get more engaged at the state level,’ so we cannot become complacent,” Grassley said. “Talk to your neighbors to the north. In one election, they’ve turned it upside down.”

The House and Senate convened at 10 a.m. this (Monday) morning.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s fleet of snow plows and trucks is ready for the first big statewide blast of winter. Craig Bargfrede, the winter operations administrator for the Iowa Department of Transportation, says the approaching storm is expected to start dumping snow this (Monday) afternoon and may not completely quit until Tuesday evening. Bargfrede says he’s seeing forecast models that call for perhaps a foot of snow — or more — in parts of southern and eastern Iowa.

“The track of the storm has continued to shift northward and by doing that, it’s going to impact all of the state of Iowa,” Bargfrede says. “Our crews have been monitoring the forecast and have been out, getting equipment ready and making sure we’re all set to go once the snow starts flying.” A Winter Storm Warning is posted for 92 of Iowa’s 99 counties. Only an area of north-central Iowa may see lesser amounts of snow. Bargfrede says multiple state agencies are working together to prep for this storm.

DOT Snowplow cam (file photo)

“We actually had a statewide coordination call yesterday afternoon with our district staff, the State Patrol, the governor’s office, Homeland Security,” Bargfrede says, “just to make sure we’re all on the same page as far as what we’re seeing in the forecast and preparations and planning that needs to be done ahead of this storm.” It’s not just about clearing the roads during the storm, but Bargfrede says there’s also the challenge of cleaning up what’s been shoved to the side of the roads.

“Especially when we’re talking about the amount of snow that we’re forecasted to get, and then follow that with some pretty significant winds on Tuesday going into Wednesday,” Bargfrede says. “Even though they’re forecasting this to be a heavier, wetter snow, we’re still anticipating a lot of visibility blowing and drifting issues.” One plus, he says, is that there’s little-to-no snow on the ground now, so there’s plenty of storage space available in ditches and in right-of-ways.

(Radio Iowa) – Creighton University economist, Ernie Goss, says the economy in Iowa and other Midwest states headed into the new year on a positive note. Goss does a survey of purchase managers, that showed a number above neutral growth for December.  “A little bit stronger than anticipated. The national number which came out this week as well, it was weaker than that, it was in the it was below growth neutral,” Goss says. The Federal Reserve announced it was going to cut interest rates six to seven times in 2024, Goss is skeptical of that.  “I chuckled, because that’s the only reason that would happen is if we moved into a recession. Now, is that the case? Well, our numbers show a softer landing than that,” he says. He says the Fed is expecting inflation to continue to be an issue.

“They’re expecting things to soften a bit, inflation coming down, but still above the target,” he says. “The target is two percentage points, and we’re still above that right now. And now with these recent supply chain disruptions in the Red Sea, and other supply chain disruptions, that’s gonna push tend to push prices up. We’ve already seen oil prices move up a bit.” Goss says the federal government pumped money into the economy to avoid the recession.

“Ninety-five percent of economists expected a recession 2023. Now, why did we not get it? Well, the reason is you can’t have a recession when you have spending at the federal level that we have had in 2023, which we still have,” Goss says. He says the federal government’s putting the money into the economy at the same time the Federal Reserve is cutting the money supply, and that is going to continue.

“I say the federal government is going to put more and more money in there and the likelihood of a recession has been reduced,” he says. “It’s an election year, and politicians don’t get reelected, the probabilities of reelection go down in a recession, certainly.” Goss says Iowa and other Midwest states have so far weathered those economic moves better than other areas of the country.

(Radio Iowa) – Forecasters say the approaching winter storm threatens to bring heavy snowfall to much of Iowa, with wide areas of the state expecting up to a foot of snow, along with strong winds that could make driving very hazardous. Meteorologist Peter Speck, at the National Weather Service office in Davenport, says eastern Iowa may get the worst of this storm. “Snowfall totals from the storm have gone up to about eight to 12 inches,” Speck says, “and we’re expecting the bulk of that from the Quad Cities metro westward into the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City metro, so it’s going to be busy here over the next 24 to 36 hours.” Some forecast models show isolated areas of eastern Iowa may get 14 inches of snow, or more.

A Winter Storm Warning is posted through Tuesday evening for all but a few counties in north-central Iowa. Besides the potentially heavy snow, Speck says those wind gusts will be wicked. “We have winds forecasted to go up to about 40 miles per hour or so, especially beginning tomorrow afternoon,” Speck says. “With that snow and wind together, it’s going to combine to produce very dangerous visibilities, potentially below a quarter mile at times, which can make for very treacherous travel. In addition to that, blowing and drifting snow as well, which could cause additional road impacts.” If there’s any good news about this storm, he says it’s that temperatures will be relatively moderate for the season.

“A lot of these storms traditionally have temperatures in the 20s, and when you combine that with the wind, it can produce wind chills in the teens,” Speck says. “But with this storm here, we’re expecting temperatures generally in the low 30s, and with that wind, it will help lead to temperatures, especially tomorrow afternoon on the backside of the storm, with wind chills dropping into the teens.” Speck says much colder temperatures are likely to move in later in the week, along with the possibility of more snow this coming weekend.