(Radio Iowa) – The labor union representing more than two-thousand graduate assistants at the University of Iowa is demanding higher wages, saying the current minimum 26-thousand dollar salary isn’t enough. Natalie McClellan is a third year P-H-D student and she represents COGS, the graduate student worker union at the U-I.  McClellan says, “Our demand was to keep up with inflation but keeping up with inflation, which can go up and down, it’s not accounting for what it would actually take to have a living wage.”

The union and the Iowa Board of Regents agreed to that 26-thousand minimum last March during negotiations, but McClellan says the reality is, the wages don’t cover costs like housing, transportation and food. The regents are asking the legislature to increase funding for the state’s three public universities, but McClellan says any increased funding needs to benefit the workforce. “Okay, you’re asking for more money for the university system,” she says. “How is that going to benefit us as the people who are making it go.”

During the regents’ Wednesday meeting in Iowa City, protesters organized by the union shut down proceedings. Regents President Pro Tem Sherry Bates had to raise her voice to adjourn the meeting.

The union is using M-I-T’s Living Wage Calculator that accounts for costs like transportation and housing. Assuming a 40-hour work week, it says a single person with no kids in Johnson County needs a pre-tax salary of 35-thousand dollars. The U-I estimates a 25-percent increase in graduate student wages would cost the system nearly 14-million dollars. Just this month, the Regents requested an additional 15-million dollars from the state for the 2025 fiscal year.

(Fontanelle, Iowa) – A property management firm in Nebraska has purchased a former care facility in Adair County. Officials with Zoul Properties, LLC, said they bought the 24,000 square-foot Good Samaritan Society-Fontanelle building. The building was left vacant when the facility closed its doors in November 2022 as the result of operating challenges faced in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Zoul said they intend to redevelop and renovate the building into an apartment community. The property will be converted into 25 apartments consisting of one and two-bedroom apartments and have features like a community room and laundry facility. The investment by Zoul Properties is expected to be $1 million, according to a press release. Renovation work is expected to kick off late this year and continue through the summer of 2024, with residential apartments available for lease and occupancy shortly thereafter.

Zoul Properties manages apartment properties in Iowa and four other Midwestern states. One of their other properties is in Adair. In Iowa, third party property management is provided by Iowa West Realty, a division of Zoul Properties.

(Radio Iowa) – That moose is still on the loose in northwest Iowa. D-N-R conservation officer Joey Yarkosky has covered Clay and O’Brien counties for eight years and says it’s a first for him. “It’s really unusual, especially for Iowa,” Yarkosky says. “Having breeding populations of moose, you’ve really gotta go up to northern Minnesota. They would have moose that would wander, especially a young bull like this, would wander south in different territory, so to make it all the way down in Iowa, it’s really pretty unique and he’s still on the move, so we’ll see where he heads to from here.”

Last week, the moose was photographed on the outskirts of Sioux Center. It appears he made a turn at Orange City and headed east, being spotted in recent days near Ruthven and Gillett Grove. Yarkosky is pleading with the public to keep its distance in hopes the moose can find its way home. “We hope so, that’s always our hope for a positive outcome, especially if we get some unique species of animals we usually don’t see,” Yarkosky says. “We always hope that they stay away from roads and people are alert as well, too, and we just hope that they give it space and then he could return back to his habitat, where it came from.”

Moose in a field in Sioux County. (Sioux Center PD Facebook photo)

He says not only is it disrespectful to crowd the moose, it’s also dangerous.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With a government shutdown looming, U.S. Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03) today (Thursday) wrote a letter to the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives requesting his pay be withheld until the government is funded.

“Members of Congress have a responsibility to the American people to work together to resolve our differences, responsibly cut wasteful spending, and protect the critical programs that Americans rely on,” Rep. Nunn said in the letter. “Congress’s failure to do so will imminently subject many Americans to painful decisions about their budget.  Members of Congress must not live by a different set of rules than the people they are sworn to serve, and as such, I do not believe it is appropriate for Members of Congress to collect a paycheck during a government shutdown.”

Rep. Nunn’s letter can be found here.

(Rural Guthrie Center, Iowa) – An SUV vehicle struck a deer on the road Wednesday night, in Guthrie County. The Guthrie County Sheriff’s Office reports the accident happened on northbound Highway 25, near 280th Street south of Guthrie Center, a little after 8-p.m.  The 2010 Jeep Liberty driven was driven by 57-year-old Loni Sue Anderson, of Shelby. Anderson was not injured. Her vehicle sustained about $4,000 damage.

DENVER, Iowa – The Iowa State Patrol reports a person driving the wrong way hit a Denver, Iowa Police Officer’s vehicle Wednesday night, when the officer tried to stop them. The vehicle was traveling northbound in the southbound lanes of Highway 63 at around 8:20-p.m.  Officers found the driver and tried to stop them by slowing down to a stop. That’s when police say the driver hit the officer’s vehicle at low speed near Highway 63 and 260th Street.

The driver then backed up, going into the ditch. The Iowa State Patrol said the driver was injured in the incident, but they did not confirm the extent of the injuries. The crash involved a 2015 Ford F-150 pickup and a 2021 Ford Explorer. No others about the crash have been released, including the names of the drivers.

Former Republican Vice-President and current 2024 presidential candidate Mike Pence will hold several “Meet-and-Greet” events in southwest Iowa, next week. According to his campaign schedule, Pence will be in Fremont, Ringgold and Adair Counties on Friday, Oct. 6th, and on Saturday, Oct. 7th, in Mills, Montgomery and Adams Counties. Pence will also be at the Atlantic High School Football game in Atlantic on Oct. 6th, for the coin toss.

Pence served alongside President Donald Trump (R) from 2017 to 2021. He officially filed to run for president on June 5, 2023. Before assuming office as vice president, Pence served as the governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017, and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013.

Pence has highlighted the economy, abortion issues, and his religious background as central themes of his campaign.

(Iowa City, Iowa) – A head-on crash early Tuesday afternoon in Iowa City resulted in the death of an SUV driver. The Iowa State Patrol reports a 2008 Ford Escape driven by 74-year-old Cynthia M. Asmussen, of Iowa City, was traveling westbound around a right-hand curve at Black Diamond Road SW/Hazelwood Avenue, when the vehicle crossed the center-line of the road and hit a 1994 Mack Dump Truck head-on. The accident happened at around 12:45-p.m.

Asmussen died at the scene. The truck driver – 39-year-old Benjamin B. Burton, of Grundy Center, was injured, and transported by ambulance to the University of Iowa Hospital, in Iowa City. The accident remains under investigation.

(St. Charles, Iowa) – A truck driver from Oklahoma was injured during a fiery crash early this (Thursday) morning, in central Iowa’s Warren County. The Iowa State Patrol reports a 2023 Kenworth semi tractor-trailer driven by 27-year-old Jackie C. Brooks, of Tuttle, OK, was traveling north on Interstate 35 near mile marker 53 at around 2:17-a.m., when his truck ran into the back of a 2019 Freightliner semi, driven by 47-year-old Roman Kotov, of Chicago, IL.

The Kenworth caught fire during the impact, causing the Interstate to be blocked. Brooks was transported by New Virginia EMS to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines. A report on his condition was not released.

The Patrol was assisted at the scene by the Warren and Madison County Sheriff’s Offices, Martensdale and St. Mary’s Fire Departments, New Virginia EMS and an Iowa DOT Highway Helper.