(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.

(Radio Iowa) — Recently re-elected Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says the state’s voter registration data base and election system must be rebuilt. “It remains vital that we see this project through to its completion,” Pate says. The governor and legislators set aside a million dollars in the current budgeting year to start a five-year upgrade estimated to cost SEVEN million dollars. “The I-Voters system was designed to meet the needs of the elections in 2005 — before we had absentee voting as common as it is now, before we implemented Election Day registration and before online registration,” Pate says. “I-Voters was great when it was built, but it’s very expensive every time we try to add something new that the system wasn’t built for.”

For example, 17 year olds in Iowa soon will be able to register and vote in PRIMARY elections if they’ll turn 18 before the following GENERAL election. Pate says it will cost 150-thousand dollars to re-program the I-Voters system for that change. Pate has used some federal grant money to upgrade the system to withstand hacking attempts from Russia and other “bad actors.” “Cyber security is a new and ongoing and constantly evolving threat,” Pate says. “Although we diligently monitor and patch I-Voters, it is nearly at the end of its life. First-in-the-nation in voting demands first-in-the-nation security.”

The next big STATEWIDE test for the system will be the 2020 Iowa Caucuses when the Republican Party of Iowa and the Iowa Democratic Party use the I-Voters system to check voter registrations. Pate is asking legislators to double the appropriation for the I-Voters upgrade to more than two million dollars in the next state budgeting year.

CHARLES CITY, Iowa (AP) — A trial has been scheduled for a northern Iowa woman accused of injecting her mother with insulin in an attempt to kill her. Floyd County District Court records say 44-year-old Jennifer Bean entered a written plea of not guilty Monday to a charge of attempted murder. Her trial is set to begin Jan. 8 in Charles City. She’s also pleaded not guilty to obstruction of emergency communications and has been charged with domestic abuse assault.

A court document says Bean injected her mother on Nov. 6 in Charles City. The document says the insulin caused the woman to have low blood sugar that, if not treated, could have resulted in the woman’s death.
The document also says Bean struck and pushed her mother and took away a phone when her mother tried to call 911 for help.