The Cass County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest on Saturday of a Central Iowa man. 31-year old Andy Alden Hanson, of Grimes, was arrested on charges of OWI 1st Offense and Driving While Suspended. Hanson was taken to the Cass County Jail where he is being held on $1000 bond.

Two people were arrested after a search warrant executed this (Tuesday) morning at a residence in rural, southeastern Audubon County. The Audubon County Sheriff’s Office reports 47-year old Mark Wayne Rydl, of Exira, and 55-year old Pamela Jo Steele, of Council Bluffs were arrested during the execution of a warrant at 3312 Quail Avenue.

Officials say Rydl had outstanding warrants from Harrison and Pottawattamie Counties. Rydl has been charged with Felon in Possession of a Firerarm/Ammunition, Possession of Methamphetamine/3rd offense, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, Unlawful Possession of Prescription Pills, and Possessing a Stolen Motor vehicle. The latter charge was assessed following the discovery on the property, of a vehicle reported stolen from Omaha.

Steele was charged with Possession of Meth with the intent to Deliver, Possession of Marijuana/2nd offense, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Both suspects were booked into the Audubon County Jail. The incident remains under investigation.

(12-p.m. News)

A whistleblower from western Iowa reported allegations of very expensive mistakes being made within the U-S Postal Service. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he talked with the whistleblower personally, then asked for an Inspector General’s investigation of how a contract was awarded for maintaining and changing the locks on P-O boxes in post offices across the region. “The contract was not awarded in accordance with Postal Service policies and procedures and it did not develop a purchase plan or conduct a price analysis before awarding the contract,” Grassley says, “and possibly $18-million was spent that didn’t need to be spent at a time when the Postal Service is bleeding billions of dollars.”

The investigation found the whistleblower was right, Grassley says, and calls it a “good example of why whistleblowers who identify waste, fraud and abuse deserve a Rose Garden ceremony.” Grassley says every federal agency that serves the public needs an independent watchdog to review issues of concern.  “I thanked the whistleblower for coming forward,” Grassley says. “Hopefully, this will put the Postal Service on the alert to follow their own rules and regulations.” It’s still unclear if one or more people are responsible for the problem and Grassley isn’t sure if there will be charges filed or firings because of the case.

“The Postal Service is kind of independent,” Grassley says. “They probably have some opportunity to have heads roll. I’ve always said, unless heads don’t roll, you aren’t going to change anything. I’m going to have to make further inquiries and follow up.” The 18-million dollar contract for the post office box work is with Diebold Incorporated. The inspector general’s report concluded the Postal Service overestimated the annual cost savings by six-point-eight million dollars per year and awarded the contract based on the inflated cost.

(Radio Iowa)

The Harlan Community School Board of Education has approved an amendment to the 2013-2014 budget. In a regular board meeting Monday, the board made the motion after discussing the amendment at length at the public hearing held on Tuesday, May 27th. The amendment was in regards to PPEL funding and the Merrill Field Project. In other business, the school board approved milk bids with Anderson Dairy, bread bids with Bee Bo bakery, fuel bids with Agriland FS for $170,176.40 and a new Thomas Bus for $84,069. Primary School Principal Scott Frolich reported to the board, the school district submitted an elementary school wide title 1 application to the state for flexibility in using reading resources for all students in the elementary school district. Superintendent Justin Wagner said those dollars will help students who struggle in reading.

“It’s a federally funded program from the federal government. And basically it helps kids who struggle in reading. Well our reading rate at the elementary building has typically hovered around the 40 percent rate. Now that it has increased over 40 percent, we were able to put in our application to really use our Title 1 funds, resources and staff for all students instead of certain students.”

The application was approved by the school board. Mr. Frolich also mentioned the primary building has 55 students taking summer school, 35 in the intermediate and 16 more in the high school. In the discussion items, Wagner spoke about the blue zones initiative in the Harlan Community. The school district must meet the Wellmark Blue Zone criteria in order for Harlan to become a blue zone designated community.

Wagner spoke for quite sometime on the recommendations Wellmark handed out to the school district. The school district is focusing solely on the elementary building first before trying to install the new proposals in the other school buildings. Some of the recommendations included not using physical activity as a punishment, no unhealthy foods to be used for fundraisers and not using foods at class celebrations. The school needs to hit 54 points in order to pass for a blue zone designation. Wagner says some are controversial.

“Things like out at recess, if a student misbehaves you would send them to a timeout. They go stand by a wall and we do other things. In the blue zone initiative, they say that takes away physical activity during recess. It makes sense. I understand the physical side of it. The flip side, what do we do to students who aren’t following direction or bullying other students? There has to be some kind of consequence.”

Wagner said the school district is in negotiations with Wellmark and more details will follow at a later school board meeting.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)

The Trevor Frederickson Memorial Fund has announced their sponsorship of the “Scary Guy,” who will be sharing his message with Atlantic, CAM and Griswold Schools in August 2014. Scary will be working with over 2,400 students, faculty and community members during his 10 day stay in Cass County.

The Cass County Child Abuse Prevention Council is declaring 2014-2015 the year of Violence Prevention in Cass County Schools. Prevention begins with our youth and teaching them the skills they need to eliminate hate.

For further information or if you would like to donate please contact Kristen Templeton at 243-8006

With KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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The Atlantic Board of Education had no problem approving the 2014-2015 District Supervisors’ contracts during their meeting Monday night, but they were less than enthusiastic about approving Administrator contracts, and opted to continue discussions on that topic instead of approving the increase. Superintendent Dr. Mike Amstein recommended the Board approve a four-percent increase in compensation for district administrators, at a cost to the district of $21,980, and a 3.8-percent increase for the District Supervisors, which amounts to $14,182.

When it came time for discussion on those recommendations, School Board Member Dennis Davis asked Amstein if all the goals set for the 2013-2014 school year were accomplished. “No, we didn’t meet all of our goals 100-percent, but our district certainly made progress in regards to student achievement on those goals,” noted Amstein. “For instance in reading, math and science, our district showed an increase in proficiency in every one of those areas.”

Board Member Rod Hartwig said he thought “Our principals…deserve the four-percent [raise]…I am not sure everyone else on the list does.” Amstein said the increases fall in-line with what other administrators and supervisors in Hawkeye 10 Conference schools are making. Amstein said “Basically the goals that the building administrators took at look at this year was 85-percent of their students would be proficient in reading, science and math.” He says they made good progress. The other was to reduce the special education deficit by 10-percent. Amstein says the majority of the school district did just that.

Amstein said “Based on that information, I believe our principals were deserving of that raise along with our Supervisors.” After the Board approved the Supervisors’ increase as a separate motion, they discussed at length, but did not act on approving an increase for the Administrators because they want to see more progress in the attaining Board established goals for those administrators.

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Another survey released today (Tuesday) is showing a lot of companies in the state have plans to add employees. The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey shows 22-percent of the companies surveyed expect to increase staff levels over the third quarter of the year. Another 72-percent plan to maintain staffing levels, while four-percent anticipate layoffs. That’s good for a Net Employment Outlook of 18-percent. Manpower spokesperson Karen Miller says the results, while positive, show weaker optimism about hiring expectations compared to recent surveys.

“The Net Employment Outlook is 18-percent, as compared to last quarter when it was 21-percent and last year at this time when it was also 21-percent,” Miller said. The Des Moines metro area remains one of the top performing markets in the country, according to the Manpower survey. For the third quarter, Des Moines posted a Net Employment Outlook of 24-percent. “Iowa, in general, has always performed very strongly, but Des Moines has been a very strong pocket for the state,” Miller said.

Nationally, the Net Employment Outlook for the third quarter is 14-percent. That’s up from 13-percent three months ago. More than 18,000 employers across the U.S. take part in the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.

(Radio Iowa)

The Atlantic Community School District’s Board of Education, Monday night, approved the hiring of some new teachers. Superintendent Mike Amstein read from a list of recommendations submitted by the district school administrators. Among the new hires is Eric Waldstein (Wald-stine), as Physical Education & Social Studies teacher. Waldstine will also serve as Head Coach of the Trojan Football Team.  His wife Hillary Waldstine will serve as the Level 2/3 Special Ed teacher.

Ashley Hack was recommended as a temporary Level 1 Special Ed Instructor at Schuler Elementary. Kelly Juhl was hired as the High School Business Teacher for the upcoming school year. Juhl comes to Atlantic from the Exira/EHK School District.

Also coming to Atlantic from the Exira/EHK District is Stephanie Graham, who will serve as High School English Teacher. And Alisha Lindquist, who previously worked in the CAM School District, was hired as K-1 Multi-Age position.