A just completed study at the University of Iowa’s Driving Safety Research Institute found there is more work to be done to create an automated vehicle that can safely navigate on Iowa’s rural roads. Institute deputy director, Omar Ahmad, oversaw the study. “Most of the testing is taking place in larger urban areas, or on interstates. But the fact is, that while a smaller portion of the population lives in rural areas, half of all traffic fatalities occur on rural roadways,” Ahmad says. One of the goals of the research was to see if automated vehicles can provide help to elderly residents with mobility, vision, or other challenges who can’t drive themselves. Ahmed says they created an automated shuttle bus designed to deal with the unique situations in rural driving, like navigating on gravel.

“You drive a gravel roadway in the center of the road and then you give way as you approach somebody and then you more or less go back to the center because that’s the best part of the gravel roadway,” he says. “As you get towards the edge, the gravel starts to get looser, and especially in bad weather, it can almost pull you in or off the road.” He says their automated vehicle had trouble discerning when to move to the middle of the gravel, especially in wet weather conditions. “It would stay towards the edge regardless of whether the weather was good or bad,” Ahmed says. “And we would want it to be smarter like a human and drive more towards the center and only go towards the edge when it sees somebody approaching.” The automated vehicle also had trouble sensing what was a hazard and what was not — sometimes slowing down for dust clouds created on gravel roads. Another issue came at intersections with low visibility, or where the rural road came to a highway.

Automated driving vehicle (UI-photo)

“If the sensors can’t see around the corner, or because the traffic is moving so fast, if they don’t see the traffic until it’s almost too late, that can be very challenging. And that was certainly something that we experienced, as we were making turns onto highways where we were at a stop sign and the traffic was approaching really fast,” he explains, “our sensors weren’t able weren’t look far enough ahead in either direction.” They used a safety driver in the bus as they drove a 47-mile route multiple times a week, round trip between Iowa City, Hills, Riverside, and Kalona. For each drive, the bus began and ended the route at one of the four pre-arranged locations to pick up residents who were volunteer research participants. Ahmad says they collected a lot of data and says there is a lot of work ahead.

“The technology has a lot of potential, it has a lot of promise, but it’s simply not there yet in terms of its reliability to be able for us to feel confident driving without a safety driver,” he says. Ahmad says there is a lot of potential for automated vehicles to make a driver safer, but taking the driver completely out of the equation is not going to happen anytime soon.   “They are not yet a replacement for the driver. And I would say it’s fairly hard to predict when they will be, but my own personal guess would be that it will be quite some time,” Ahmad says.

The U-S Department of Transportation awarded eight institutions a seven-million-dollar grant for automated vehicle research. Ahmad says the U-I was one of three to study rural driving conditions and the first of the three to complete the data collection portion of their project. He says they will now share the good and bad issues they found with rural roadways and automation with the other institutions.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – Officials with the Iowa Pharmacy Association have announced an Atlantic native is the winner of the 2023 Thomas R. Temple Mentorship Award. The award was presented Thursday to CoraLynn Trewet (MS, PharmD, BCPS, CDE), of Ankeny. The Thomas R. Temple Award recognizes an individual who has mentored, supported and sponsored pharmacists in a transformative way. The pharmacist for whom the award is named, and the inaugural recipient, Thomas R. Temple, inspired and mentored through his career as CEO for the Iowa Pharmacy Association (1979-2011) and beyond.

The IPA says Trewett “Began her journey with the IPA in 2001 as the Executive Intern.” She was “mentored by CEO Emeritus Tom Temple,” his staff and many IPA members. A graduate of Drake University, Dr. Trewett worked for several years at the University of Iowa as an Associate Clinical Professor, practicing in family medicine. She currently serves as the Senior Medical Science Liaison in cardiovascular disease, at Bristol Myers Squibb.

Dr. Coralynn Trewet (center) receives the IPA 2023 Thomas R. Temple Award. (Photo submitted)

Dr. CoraLynn Trewett lives in Ankeny with her husband, Matt, and their three children.

The Iowa Pharmacy Association takes great pride in recognizing individuals for their contributions of leadership, patient care, professional involvement and public service. These awards serve to capture Iowa pharmacy’s spirit of service and its culture of professionalism.

(Radio Iowa) – A new national political action committee is calling on Iowa lawmakers to set up a commission that would investigate and discipline county attorneys who refuse to enforce certain laws. Republican presidential candidate Larry Elder spoke on behalf of the PAC at a Des Moines news conference and began by criticizing local prosecutors in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia. “The number one job of the government is to protect people and property and the number one job of government is not being fulfilled,” Elder said.

Elder and the group, though, are starting their national campaign for a crackdown on local prosecutors in Iowa, which hosts the kick off event of the GOP presidential campaign, and Elder criticized Polk County Attorney Kimberly Graham. Graham said as she campaigned for the job last year that she wants to end prosecution for first time offenders caught with a small amount of marijuana. “The soft on crime DA knows she’s being watched and, so far, she’s not done anything egregious,” Elder said.

Neither Graham, nor an official with the Iowa County Attorneys Association were available for comment on the idea of a new commission in Iowa to police local prosecutors. Elder’s next appearance for the Enforce the Law PAC will be in New Hampshire, which hosts the first presidential primary. The group’s initial proposal is patterned after a Georgia law.

“One of the things that this commission will do is it will serve as a deterrent,” Elder said. “Even if no action is taken, the fact that these DAs know that something like this exists and there’s a possibility that they could be removed I think will make them behave far more responsibly.”

A spokesman for the group said the draft of their proposal for the 2024 Iowa legislature is not yet ready and the commission concept will be adjusted to fit the legal framework in each state. The spokesman also said Elder is not a paid spokesman for the PAC, which has not yet filed a report with the Federal Election Commission.

(Radio Iowa) – A new Navy submarine named for the state of Iowa will be christened tomorrow (Saturday) morning at a shipyard in Connecticut. Tom Hudson is executive director of the U-S-S Iowa’s commissioning committee.) “I’ve been to that shipyard many times. I’ve seen the submarine as its gone from individual pieces to a completed, welded together submarine that’s ready to be put into water and go to sea,” he says.

The ceremony starts at 9 a.m. Iowa time tomorrow (Saturday). Former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack has been designated by the Navy as the ship’s sponsor. She’ll be the person breaking the champagne bottle over the submarine’s bow. “The submarine will not slide down and go into the water,” Hudson says. “They don’t do that anymore, so this will just be a symbolic opportunity where the champagne bottle is broken and celebrated that the major construction milestone is done and sometime in the next few weeks the submarine will then be placed in the water and start its trials.”

The U-S-S Iowa will be tested at sea for about a year before it’s officially commissioned and placed into service as an active warship. Hudson spent 20 years on active duty in the U-S Navy and he’s lead the group of volunteers who’re raising money to support events like the christening and travel to Iowa for sailors who’ll serve on the U-S-S Iowa. The group’s fundraising will also help outfit the sub with things like exercise equipment and mattresses for the sailors’ bunks that aren’t part of the construction budget.

USS Iowa SSN797 awaits christening in a Groton, CT dry dock

“I served on board two different submarines during my career,” Hudson says. “That’s what kind of got me interested in participating in this program now that I’m retired, some way to get connected and stay in tune with what’s going on.” Hudson will be out of state Saturday for a family event and will watch the sub’s christening online. Watch parties are also planned in nine Iowa cities.

The watch parties will be held in Dubuque, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Hiawatha, Des Moines, Van Meter, Fort Dodge, Creston, Council Bluffs and Sioux City.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission fined an online sports betting company five-thousand dollars Thursday at their meeting Waterloo. Racing and Gaming Administrator, Brian Ohorilko says Bally Bet missed the weekly download of the self gambling ban list, which is required every seven days.

He says the Commission reached an agreement on the fine based on the company’s past history.

The fine would increase if Bally Bet had a similar violation within the next 365 days.

(Radio Iowa) – The former city clerk in the eastern Iowa city of Eldridge is being charged with four felonies for allegedly using over 76-thousand dollars in city money for personal expenses. Denise Benson was fired last October after working for the the City of Eldridge since 1992. She’d been the city clerk for nearly 20 years. According to a news release from the Scott County Sheriff’s Office, Benson’s home was searched earlier this month and officers found several items purchased with the city’s credit card.

Benson is being charged with first degree theft, unauthorized use of a credit card, identity theft and forgery. A special investigation by the State Auditor’s Office was released last month. The report found she used 16-thousand dollars worth of city funds to pay her own credit card bills and she also shopped with the city’s credit card for things like toys, clothes, electronics and a dog door.

(Radio Iowa) – A developer plans to restore a historic building in downtown Terril. The former bank was in danger of being demolished. The Terril City Council has unanimously approved transferring ownership of the building to Tyler Kilgore of Estherville. “I liked the look of the building,” Kilgore says. “I didn’t want to see it torn down, so I thought I’d put a proposal in to try to turn it into something and try to generate some business in the Terril area,” he says.

Kilgore says he’d consider retrofitting the building for a specific tenant, but his initial plan is to turn the old bank into an events center. “Something people could rent out for birthday parties, wedding events, dances, anything like that. That was kind of my initial thought. I’m kind of open to stuff, I guess. I’m not really stuck on that,” Kilgore says. “…If someone were to come in and…get ahold of me and say: ‘Hey, I want to open up a restaurant in that area,’ I would be open to turning it into that also.”

Terril bank building. (Terril FB photo)

Kilgore estimates it will take about 265-thousand dollars to complete the restoration he has in mind. “The exterior and the foundation looks pretty good. The whole inside needs to be redone…Plumbing, electrical, H-VAC, pour concrete inside, redo the roof, put either garage doors in the windows or just all new windows but in the original openings because they’re pretty big because they’re like 10 feet tall and like 8 feet wide, I think,” Kilgore says. “Just kind of restore it not necessarily to its original state, but something similar.”

Kilgore was the only person to submit a bid to save the building.

(Radio Iowa) – The state unemployment rate for May remained at two-point-seven percent. Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend says job losses were offset by more workers joining the labor force.  “We saw 64-hundred people come back into the workforce in April — so that’s a really good sign,” Townsend says. “We saw a decrease in the total number of unemployed individuals by 500, from month to month. So when people are coming back into the work workforce, they’re also coming in and finding jobs.”

The labor force participation rate moved up to 68-point-five percent in May, getting closer to the 69 percent rate before the pandemic. Total non-farm employment did drop by 200 jobs in May, with manufacturing losing 14-hundred jobs. “So that’s concerning, you know, we want to make sure that we keep those numbers up, that can be related to seasonal shutdowns,” she says. “A lot of factories tend to shut down during the week if there’s a national holiday or something. So it could be related to that.”

Townsend says there was one manufacturing area that saw the bulk of the losses. “The job losses in manufacturing were both in durable and non-durable — but they appeared to be related primarily to animal slaughtering and processing. Those jobs were down about 300 this month. So a slowdown maybe in meat processing, in May, might account for that,” Townsend says.

Retail trade saw a loss of 900 jobs, breaking a string of five consecutive increases that saw 33-hundred jobs added since November. Townsend says there are a lot of positives in the report and they will keep an eye on the retail and manufacturing sectors. “Those are indicators of how the economy is going manufacturing and retail. So, there’s some cautionary pieces of information in the report,” she says “Although overall, it’s positive because we did get, more than six-thousand Iowans back into the workforce,” she says.

The national unemployment rate rose to three-point-seven percent in May.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – Auditor of State Rob Sand today (Thursday), released a report on a review of the Southern Iowa Council of Governments (SICOG). SICOG is located in Creston, Iowa and serves 8 counties and cities within the 8-county area in southern Iowa. SICOG was established under Chapter 28E of the Code of Iowa.

Sand reported the review identified $4,304.66 of improper disbursements issued to SICOG’s former Executive Director for cleaning services which were not provided. The former Executive Director has subsequently pleaded guilty to fraudulent practice in the 2nd degree and received a deferred judgement.

In addition, Sand reported hours recorded on employee electronic and paper timesheets did not support the hours and salaries included on selected requests for reimbursements for programs and/or projects. In addition, SICOG does not have a written cost allocation plan in accordance with the Code of Federal Regulations.

Auditor Sand also recommended SICOG establish a cost allocation plan in accordance with the Code of Federal Regulations, “Indirect Costs Identification and Assignment, and Rate Determination for Nonprofit,” and ensure reimbursement requests are properly supported by timesheets and payroll journals.

Copies of the report have been filed with the Southern Iowa Council of Governments, the Iowa Economic Development Authority, and the Iowa Department of Transportation. A copy of the report is available for review on the Auditor of State’s website at Audit Reports – Auditor of State.

Des Moines, Iowa – In recognition of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on June 15, the Iowa Insurance Division is reminding financial professionals and Iowans to be on the lookout for signs of elder financial abuse, including potential exploitation and scams. To help protect senior investors, the Iowa Insurance Division recommends investors provide the name of someone they trust as a trusted contact on their investment accounts.

“Scammers are looking to prey on unsuspecting investors and they often target older individuals. One way to help detect and even prevent financial exploitation is to create another layer of safety for investment accounts by adding a trusted contact to investment accounts,” Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen said.  “The Iowa Insurance Division is actively working to combat cases of abuse and senior financial exploitation by providing tools and resources to protect investors.”

A trusted contact is a person authorized by the investor to allow financial firms, in limited circumstances, to contact them when there are concerns about activity in an account. A trusted contact may be a family member, attorney, accountant or another third-party that respects the investor’s privacy and understands how to handle the responsibility.

The Iowa Fraud Fighters and Lucha Antifraude websites offer more resources for individuals to protect themselves from fraud.  Broker-dealers and investment advisers can also report suspected senior financial exploitation to the Iowa Insurance Division for investigation.

Iowans are encouraged to contact the Iowa Insurance Division at 877-955-1212 or sfe@iid.iowa.gov with suspicions of possible senior financial exploitation.