(Radio Iowa) — Yesterday (Tuesday) was “Giving Tuesday” but some non-profits in the region are still struggling. Kelly Ptacek, with the Food Bank for the Heartland, says they’re still in dire need of donations of canned and packaged food as well as fresh fruits and vegetables. “We work with our partners in the community to try to help provide produce in particular, but lots of food to those that need it,” Ptacek says. “When you make your family meals, things like apples, potatoes, onions, carrots, those kinds of basic pieces of your meal.”

Those fresh items are always in high demand at the Omaha-based food bank. She says cash donations are also extremely useful. “We can buy produce in particular but food in bulk so we get a better rate when we have the cash to be able to buy that food,” Ptacek says. “We also do can drives and we take food at the food bank as well. We’ll sort that and then send it back out to our partner agencies so they’ll have both shelf-stable food as well as the fresh produce.”

With the early arrival of cold winter-like weather, she says hungry people across the region are relying even more on the agency for their daily meals. “We are seeing still a significant need,” Ptacek says. “We serve 16 counties in western Iowa and 77 counties in Nebraska. There are 80,000 children in the area who are food insecure. That is a large number of children that we want to make sure we can get food into their homes.”

Learn more about the organization or make a donation at: foodbankheartland.org.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) Wednesday, approved four-point-five million dollars in Community Development Block Grant funds for 11 Iowa communities, including Emerson, Sidney and Wiota. I-E-D-A spokesperson, Brooke Miller, says the funds are targeted at specific areas.
She says the funds enable the communities to make needed improvements to water and sewer systems, improve housing conditions for homeowners, provide facilities for disabled and at-risk individuals, along with transforming downtown spaces.

Miller says these grants are only available to non-metropolitan areas. “The funds are awarded based on benefit to low and moderate income people, financial need, project impact and readiness, and commitment of local resources to the project as well,” according to Miller.  She says the communities will receive the funding once the final contracts are signed. She says it’s a federally funded program through the U-S Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the state administers the funds.

Here’s the list of awards and matching amounts for each community in our area:
Emerson Sanitary Sewer Improvements $300,000 award/match $95,581.
Sidney Water System Improvements $382,041 award/match $486,234.
Wiota Water System Improvements $116,000 award/match $767,320.

A Shelby County man has won a $100,000 lottery prize. Dustin Delgado of Harlan claimed the second of six top prizes available in the Iowa Lottery’s “$100,000 Holiday Mega Crossword” scratch game. He purchased his winning ticket at Taylor Quik Pik, 2102 23rd St. in Harlan, and claimed his prize Monday at the lottery’s regional office in Council Bluffs.

The $100,000 Holiday Mega Crossword is a $10 scratch game. For more information about this game, and the number of prizes still available, visit www.ialottery.com. Non-winning holiday scratch tickets can be entered into the lottery’s Fa la la Loot Play it Again® promotion from now through Jan. 8 at 8:59 a.m. The promotion includes $125,000 in cash prizes, including a $20,000 grand prize.

Tickets can be entered online or through the LotteryPlus mobile app. For rules and complete details, visit www.ialottery.com.

Police in Harlan report three recent arrests. Last Friday, 24-year old Khadijah Meeks, of Harlan, was arrested following a traffic stop in the 700 block of Elm St.  Meeks was transported to the Shelby County Jail where she was charged with operating while intoxicated and disorderly conduct.

On November 20th, 29-year old Ty Ross Dean Hatcher, of Avoca, was arrested following a traffic stop in the 1100 block of Chatburn Ave. Hatcher was transported to the Shelby County Jail where he was charged with driving while suspended, speed, and violation of financial liability. That same day, 36-year old Christopher Daniel Ivey, of Harlan, was arrested following a traffic stop in the 600 block of Market St.  Ivey was transported to the Shelby County Jail where he was charged with operating while intoxicated, no valid driver’s license and speed.

The Harlan Police Department has also issued a reminder to dog owners: The 2019 dog licenses are now available at the police department.  This year the cost of the tag is $10 per animal, and you MUST bring proof of rabies with you when you register.  Failure to register by January 31, 2019 may result in additional fines.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A Roman Catholic diocese on Wednesday defended its decision to continue employing a priest who told police he was trying to rape a woman when he was arrested naked in an Iowa mall in 2013. The Diocese of Sioux City issued a statement for the first time acknowledging the 5-year-old incident involving 39-year old Rev. Jeremy Wind, calling it a “mental health episode” from which he recovered with the help of medication and treatment. The diocese gave no details about what occurred and told parishioners the scrutiny was unfortunate and unnecessary because “there is nothing newsworthy to report.”
The statement came in response to inquiries from The Associated Press, which used the state’s open records law to shed light on a criminal case that was recently erased from public court files. It marks the latest diocese personnel matter that has come under scrutiny since its acknowledgment in October to having kept quiet a priest’s 1986 admission to sexually abusing roughly 50 boys.

Police reports show Wind was meeting with a female parishioner at a bakery in December 2013 when he began behaving erratically. He had just celebrated Mass at Christ the King church in Sioux Center, a town of 7,000 people in northwest Iowa. Wind told the woman he was going to masturbate and took off his pants, prompting her to run away, she later told police. Wind chased her to her car, where she locked the door as he yelled about raping her and pounded on the vehicle’s window. “I was so horrified, I thought what am I going to do?” the woman told police, in a statement obtained by AP. “I sat for awhile because I didn’t want to hurt him. When he started banging so hard that I thought he was going to break the window, I drove away.”

A Sioux Center police officer found Wind at the nearby Centre Mall, where he said he had no pants on because he “wanted to rape her” and instructed the officer to write that statement down, a report shows. He later said that he also wanted to rape the officer. Wind ripped off the officer’s name tag and punched the officer, a report shows. He was handcuffed on the ground as a deputy pointed a Taser at him. Wind was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct in a criminal complaint that didn’t mention the woman or his statements about rape. Under a September 2014 plea bargain, he received a deferred judgment, paid a $200 fine and was put on “informal probation” for one year. The agreement said Wind was “experiencing mania along with psychosis which prevented him from understanding his conduct at that time” of the incident.

All records related to the case disappeared from the Iowa courts online database this year, after Wind was transferred to the Cathedral of the Epiphany in Sioux City. Sioux County Attorney Tom Kunstle said the AP would have to seek a court order to get him to answer any questions about the case. He summarily rejected an open records request for his correspondence related to the matter. Wind received counseling and medical treatment for mental illness and “has since provided exemplary spiritual and priestly care to his parishioners,” the diocese said. Wind is on medication and follows “a lifestyle regimen that enables him to function without problems,” the statement said.

(Radio Iowa) — A change of command is taking place at Sioux City’s 185th Air Refueling National Guard Unit. The Iowa National Guard says Sioux City native Colonel Mark Muckey has been selected as the next Wing Commander of the unit. Colonel Muckey says it’s a great opportunity to come home 30 years after he joined the 185th when he was in high school: Muckey joined the Iowa Guard at 17 while he was till going to Sioux City East High School and later was selected to go to pilot training. He went to college at Morningside and Iowa State and says “It is an absolutely amazing opportunity.”

Colonel Mark Muckey

Muckey flew the A-7 Corsair, and eventually ended up in Oklahoma. He is a command pilot with more than four-thousand flying hours, primarily in the U-S Air Force C-130 Hercules and K-C-135 Strato-Tanker. Colonel Muckey is currently the Air National Guard Advisor to the Air Mobility Command Inspector General in St. Louis where he helps oversee several units. “All the wings that fall under the air mobility command, active guard and reserve. And I give them checkups and provide them feedback on their performance,” Muckey says.

Colonel Muckey will overlap command duties in Sioux City with the current commander, Colonel Larry Christensen for a few months beginning in January, 2019. Christensen is being promoted to brigadier general and has been selected as the Chief of Staff for the Iowa Air National Guard at Camp Dodge in Des Moines. That will mean some new duties for Christensen. “Probably one of the major things is to represent our adjutant general, Major General Tim Orr, in different aspects of the Iowa National Guard, whether that be air or army,” Christensen says. “To manage the staff down there at joint force headquarters. Working with not only the 185th, but also the 132nd, the wing down in Des Moines…but also the 133rd in Fort Dodge.”

He will assume his new position following a formal handoff of the Wing leadership to Colonel Muckey. A formal change of command ceremony will be planned for a later date.

(UPDATE) CLARINDA, Iowa (AP) — Two Iowa departments are investigating complaints of restraints, assault and abuse at a foster home and treatment facility for troubled youths from Iowa and other states, officials said. The Des Moines Register reported that Iowa’s Human Services and Inspections and Appeals departments are looking into the allegations against Clarinda Academy in the southwest Iowa community of Clarinda and into any problems at Woodward Academy in the central Iowa community of Woodward. Both are owned by Alabama-based Sequel Youth and Family Services.

A federally mandated protection and advocacy organization in the state of Washington alleged earlier this year that foster children were being held against their will at the Clarinda facility, were subjected to excessive restraint and were verbally abused. Disability Rights Washington said it partnered with Disability Rights Iowa to expose “a very restrictive and segregated institution where policies, training and oversight do not adequately protect against the risk of abusive restraints.” Sequel Executive Vice President Steve Gilbert told the newspaper that Clarinda was subject to 28 different on-site assessments by state authorities. “In September the state of Iowa completed their on-site audit at Clarinda, which noted no deficiencies and renewed our full licensure status,” Gilbert told the Register.

The disability rights workers said students they interviewed privately reported they were often yelled and cursed at, spit upon or threatened by staff. Washington state announced after the Disability Rights report that it would stop sending foster youths to Clarinda and would move those already there by January. The federal government has tried to move facilities such as Clarinda away from the use of restraints on youths, saying the practice can re-traumatize them. But Iowa’s standards allow physical restraints to keep children from hurting themselves, others or property. Clarinda and Woodward could be asked to begin improvement plans after the Iowa investigation is complete, said Mikki Stier, deputy director of Iowa Department of Human Services. A department spokesman, Matt Highland, said he couldn’t immediately characterize the number or nature of any allegations made against staffers or others at the Woodward Academy.

Iowa’s Department of Inspections and Appeals, which licenses such facilities, told state lawmakers earlier this fall they were unaware of alleged abuse until the Disability Rights Washington report. More than 30 police reports were made involving students and staff at the Clarinda facility over the past five years. But it’s unclear how many led to prosecutions.