Officials with the Southwest Iowa Planning Council (SWIPCO) will holding a town hall informational meeting Wednesday November 9th at 6:30 p.m., at Anita Community Building with regard to a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for housing rehabilitation in a targeted area of the city.  SWIPCO will discuss the application process with city officials and residents of the target area, and staffers will help any residents who would like to apply for a grant  that evening, in filling out the application and give them examples of supporting documentation needed. anita-town-hall-flyer

Community Development Director Amber Carcel, says “We really wanted to have a face to face with as many of the potential applicants as possible, walk them through the application and explain the process of the program once they are income qualified. So many homeowners struggle to understand what we need, why we need it, etc. There is a lot of back and forth via the mail, telephone calls, and fax. We hope to eliminate that and expedite the entire process by helping them in the beginning.”

Anita received a housing community development block grant (CDBG) to assist low to moderate income homeowners within a set target area in 2016. The grant is for $230,900 to repair six homes within the set target area. Each approved home is eligible for up to $24,999 in repairs. Carcel says  “This amount of money allowed per home through this program allows us to do much more than with our other forgivable loan programs. We may do a roof, siding, windows, etc.” Community Development Block Grants are awarded annually by the Iowa Economic Development Authority with funding from the department of Housing and Urban Development.

SWIPCO is a council of government serving the eight counties of southwest Iowa with public transportation, community development, and housing. SWIPCO is an equal opportunity employer, provider, and lender.

A man from Pottawattamie County was arrested Thursday afternoon on Montgomery County warrants for burglary and theft. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports Joseph L. Bartlett, of Council Bluffs, was taken into custody at the Pott. County Jail and transported back to Montgomery County to face charges of Burglary in the 2nd Degree and Theft in the 1st Degree. His bond was set at $10,000.

And, a Webster County woman was arrested Thursday afternoon in Council Bluffs on a Montgomery County warrant for Violation of Probation. Jolene M. Cain, of Ft. Dodge, was located at the Jennie Edmundson Hospital and transported to the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center, where her cash bond was set at $5,000.

The Cass County Republicans will be holding the grand opening of their county headquarters in Atlantic, on Saturday, October 15th, beginning at 3 p.m.  According to County Chair David Wiederstein, the location of the event and the headquarters will be at the site of the old Bonnesen’s Five and Dime at 506 Chestnut St. in downtown Atlantic.

In addition to candidates for local elected office, 3^rd District Republican Congressman David Young, will be in attendance to support the opening of the headquarters.  Light refreshments will be provided.  The public is invited to come out and enjoy the opportunity to meet the Republican candidates for office.

Chairman David Wiederstein asks also, that anyone who is willing to serve as a volunteer at the headquarters to contact him at 249-8417.

The Iowa Department of Education has released the draft of the revised standards for teaching social studies to kids across state. The Department’s Stefanie Wager says a state writing team put together the new standards after several months of study. Wager says they looked at what other states are doing, looked at national standards, reviewed the old standards and then wrote up the new proposed standards. Wager says the move to update the standards was driven by a couple of things.

“A lot of general complaints over the years about our standards not being rigorous, not being specific enough, that kind of thing,” Wager says. She says the governor’s executive order requiring education standards be reviewed also was part of it as the social studies standards have been in place since 2008. The writing team now hands off its proposal to a review team which will make any final modifications after getting input from Iowans.

“We do a public survey, we will do public forums, we will do focus groups, those kinds of things,” Wager says. “And their job is to look at all of that data and feedback collectively and say ‘the writing team had a misstep here and we need to fix this portion of the standards,’ and that kind of thing.” She says it will be kind of a final polish on the plan.

“Their job isn’t to make sweeping changes unless there is strong evidence from the data and from the feedback that supports those changes,” according to Wager. This is a continuation of the process that has already seen the state’s standards for teaching math and science to K-through-12th graders get an upgrade. Wager says some states get very specific about which historical events should be included in social studies curriculum and that causes the review to get controversial. She doesn’t expect that here.

“These standards are nearly that specific — and so I doubt that you would see nearly as much controversy as you might see in other states where they are really specifically defining that you have to cover this person and this battle and that sort of thing. But certainly it’s much less black and white than perhaps math or science,” Wager says.

The Social Studies Standards Review Team will meet for the first time November 8th to being the public review of the draft social studies standards. The team’s first meeting will be held from 9 a-m until 3:30 p-m in Room B-100 of the Grimes State Office Building in Des Moines. The meeting is open to the public.

(Radio Iowa)