(Radio Iowa)- Blind and deaf Iowans are urging lawmakers to reject some of the changes proposed in the governor’s state government reorganization plan. A spokesperson for Governor Reynolds say there are no plans to close the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs, but some advocates point to a part of the governor’s bill that would repeal the Iowa law that says the legislature has to approve a move to close the school. Speaking through an American Sign Language interpreter, Sarah Young Bear-Brown says her six-year-old daughter is thriving at the school.

“It’s like our second home,” Young Bear-Brown says. “I don’t want to see another school close. I do not want to see that. We need to keep the Iowa School for the Deaf open.” Young Bear-Brown, a graduate of the Iowa School for the Deaf, tried to share her views during a Senate subcommittee meeting yesterday (Monday), but there was no sign language interpreter on the online platform.

The government reorganization bill also calls for Governor Kim Reynolds to start appointing the director of the Iowa Department for the Blind. For nearly 100 years, the Iowa Commission for the Blind has selected the agency’s director. Cindy Ray of Urbandale is an officer with the National Federation of the Blind of Iowa. “I have seen that blind people running the agency understand and know blind people,” Ray said.

Mary McGee of Des Moines, who has been blind all her life, says the agency’s training gives blind Iowans the confidence to work and contribute to society. “And we’re going to lose that if friends of the governor or good political supporters or optometrists get on that board and consumers have no input like they do now,” McGee said.

Molly Severn, an aide to Governor Reynolds, says Iowans have the perception that state government officials are accountable to the governor, so governors should be appointing the agency’s director.

(Radio Iowa) – Key Republican lawmakers are questioning “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” programs at Iowa’s three state universities. Republican Representative Taylor Collins of Mediapolis, is a member of the House panel that oversees the budgets for the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. Collins suggests the six figure salaries for the the top diversity and social justice officers at the three schools are excessive.

“I don’t know anybody in my district who makes north of $250,000 a year,” Collins said during a subcommittee hearing today. Collins said he has a “hard time squaring” a request for more state funding when the state universities are spending about $750-thousand a year to pay the four diversity officers on the campuses in Ames, Iowa City and Cedar Falls. “I think everything’s on the table to make sure costs are being affordable for students,” Collins said.

Republican Representative Skyler Wheeler of Hull, chairman of the House Education Committee, told the three university president he wants to know why diversity, equity and inclusion programs “have become such a phenomenon” on college campuses. “These positions haven’t always been there,” Wheeler said.

University of Northern Iowa president Mark Nook said UNI has been involved in working on diversity issues in and around the Cedar Falls campus for 50 years and he said large Iowa employers like John Deere are asking universities to help students from diverse backgrounds complete college. “It’s about solving the primary economic challenge that this state faces,” Nook said, “simply not having enough people for the jobs that are here.”

University of Iowa president Barbara Wilson told lawmakers employers are asking for graduates who can lead in a diverse world. “How to be able to work in diverse teams, how to be able to think about diversity in terms of clients, products, marketplaces,” Wilson said, “so if we don’t have strategies that really think for where we’re headed in the next 10 years, we’re not going to be able to get our students great jobs either.”

Iowa State University president Wendy Wintersteen told lawmakers diversity and equity are part of ISU’s heritage. “When Iowa State had its first presidential installation in 1869, the board of trustees said at that time said that everyone would be welcome regardless of race, regardless of gender, regardless of socioeconomic status,” Wintersteen said. “This was a new idea at that time.”

Earlier this month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he plans to ban Florida’s state universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and GOP lawmakers in other states are discussing similar moves.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Natural Resources Commission has approved funding for another year of a program to monitor bats. The D-N-R’s Kelly Poole says the program this summer will monitor bat sounds to track them and inventory their numbers. “Related to white nose syndrome, which is a disease that’s killing thousands of bats,” she says.

She says it is something they have done since 2013.” Iowa State University will be coordinating our community science program to actually collect the data. They’ll be processing the data and they’ll be submitting it to the North American bat monitoring program, which is a requirement of this grant,” Poole says. She says they anticipate using some 35 to 40 volunteers to run routes in the state to track the bats.

“The information is important to us because it’s part of our the D-N-R’S white nose response plan,” Poole says. The volunteers record the noises the bats make that help them navigate in the dark. The contract for the monitoring says the costs are not to exceed 27-thousand dollars.

(Radio Iowa) – While it’s unseasonably warm across much of Iowa Monday  afternoon, forecasters say high temperatures will be back down in the 20s by Thursday with the chance for more snow, which is excellent news for the state’s thousands of snowmobiling enthusiasts.

Jim Willey of Manchester is spokesman for the Iowa State Snowmobile Association. “We have had some challenging years the last few years,” Willey says. “It’s one of the largest outdoor activities worldwide, but in Iowa, we’re very dependent on getting the right weather. It drives about $30 billion of economic activity in North America, and a big segment of that happens in Iowa when we have snow, and it’s disappointing when we don’t.”

There are about 60 snowmobiling clubs across Iowa which groom more than 8,800 miles of trails statewide. “The trail program is the largest recreational trail system in Iowa,” Willey says. “It’s all completely funded by the registration and trail passes that Iowa snowmobilers buy for their machines. It’s totally a self-funded program. There’s no tax dollars that go into it whatsoever and it’s all paid for by the people that use it.”

(ISSA photo)

There have been multiple advances in technology in recent years, improving the helmets and communications, the snowsuits, boots and gloves, and the snowmobiles themselves. “The type of equipment that’s available today makes it very comfortable to be out in even sub-zero weather riding your snowmobile,” Willey says. “The equipment that snowmobiles have today make them safer and more stable and more enjoyable for everybody to ride.”

Learn more at: www.iowasnowmobiler.com.

(Radio Iowa) – A Senate subcommittee has advanced a bill that would let Iowans with a doctor’s recommendation have a darker tint applied to the windows of their vehicles. Senator Waylon Brown of Osage said the bill as written isn’t ready, but he’d like to figure out a solution.

“I have three people in my district who have what’s called Dracula Disease and sunlight actually causes the blood to come up to the surface of their skin,” Brown said, “so they can only travel at night.”

Dracula Disease is a real genetic disorder that’s likely the origin of the vampire myth. Iowans who suffered eye discomfort in bright sunlight, a condition called photophobia, used to be able to get a medical exemption and the DOT’s permission to have a darker tint applied to their vehicles’ windows, but legislators repealed that law in 2012. Brown said he has constituents who got those window tint exemptions before it began illegal.

“Those vehicles are about at the end of their life,” Brown said, “and they’re not going to be able to get the window tint they need to be able to drive during the daylight.”

Law enforcement officials say vehicles that have a darker tint on the windshield or the front side windows are a safety risk. Iowa State Patrol Sergeant Wade Major said tinted windows prevent eye-to-eye contact between motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians at intersections.

“Whether you have the right of way or not, essentially you’re going to look over to left or right and you make that eye contact,” Major said. “What we’re seeing nowadays with these tinted windows, those that are basically illegal in the state is not only the sides are being tinted, but also the fronts are being tinted, so that is a concern of ours because you do not have that eye to eye contact or clear vision as you go through there.”

Major also told lawmakers that officers approaching a vehicle during a traffic stop are trained to look for the driver’s hands. “Hands are what’s going to hurt us, usually. When we approach a vehicle, we want to be able to see those hands for officer safety issues,” he said. “With a window tint, it distorts the vision and you can’t really see in that well.”

Law enforcement officials say encountering more tinted windows will make it harder to enforce Iowa’s seat belt law or see when a driver is illegally using a smart phone.

ATLANTIC, IOWA – Cass Health is pleased to welcome three new providers to the team at AMC Rapid Care. Mark Habel, ARNP, Chanda Moreland, ARNP, and Linda Newsome, PA-C all recently began providing care to patients at Cass Health.

Habel is Family Nurse Practitioner who recently graduated from Chamberlain University with his Master of Science in Nursing. Previously, he worked for nearly 25 years as a Registered Nurse (RN) in a wide variety of specialties, with extensive experience in cardiac intensive care.

Moreland is also a Family Nurse Practitioner and graduate of Chamberlain University. She has worked as a nurse practitioner since 2018, and she first became an RN in 2009. She is a member of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, the Iowa Nurse Practitioner Society, Emergency Nurse Association, and the Iowa Emergency Nurse Association.

Chanda

Habel

Newsome

Newsome has worked as a Physician Assistant since 2004. She is a member of the Society of Emergency Medicine Physician Assistants, American Association of Physician Assistants, Iowa Physician Assistant Society, and the Nebraska Academy of Physician Assistants.

AMC Rapid Care is a walk-in clinic for minor injuries and illness. The clinic is open seven days a week and is located next to the Cass Health Emergency Department.

(Radio Iowa) – Several students are using the Sioux City School District’s career academy training to become firefighters once they graduate.

Sergeant Bluff Fire Chief Anthony Gaul leads the program that includes college courses. “They’ve got two classes they’re Western Iowa Tech credit classes, fire protection systems, principles of emergency services there’s the Emergency Medical Responder — they can’t take that until they are 17 — that’s a state rule,” he says. “Second semester of their senior year they can take firefighter one and hazardous materials.”

Gaul says many students are also getting real-world experience at local departments to go along with the classes. “Three in Sergeant Bluff, one at the 185th (Iowa Air Guard) fire department now. We have just added another one so there are five in North Sioux City and three in South Sioux City and more trying to come along all the time now,” Gaul says.

Sioux City students during firefighter training. (KSCJ photo)

Jackson Johnson of Sioux City East High School hopes to become the third generation of his family to be a Sioux City firefighter.
“Some days we’re in here learning about stuff on the TV and then other days we’re doing a lot of hands-on and go into stations, go into Sergeant bluff and we do stuff down there too it definitely opens your mind about a lot of this stuff in here,” Johnson says.

Chief Gaul says it’s fun to see the students get excited as they learn and train to be firefighters. Many fire departments across the state are struggling to find new people to fill their open positions, and it’s hoped this program will help fill the gap.

The Glenwood (IA) Police Department reports two arrests from the past couple of days. On Saturday, 19-year-old Michael Monson, of Glenwood, was arrested on a Mills County warrant for Theft in the 1st Degree ($10,000 cash or surety bond). And, on the 10th, 42-year-old Daniel Thomas, of Glenwood was arrested for Driving while barred, with bond set at $2,000 cash or surety. He was released on his own recognizance.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Iowa State Patrol will be participating in what’s being called a “High 3” project for 2023, focusing on two-lane highways, beginning this Wednesday. ISP Trooper/Public Information Officer Ryan Devault told KJAN News the project evolved out of data crunching from three-years of traffic accidents.

Devault says he was surprised to learn from the study that there were 58 fatalities on two-lane roads. That’s because there are more variables contributing to those crashes.

On Wednesday, February 15th, the Iowa State Patrol will be working with other law enforcement agencies and conducting a saturation project on Highway 2, Highway 34 and Highway 92. They’ll be focusing on speed and seat belt usage, in particular. Each month, Devault says, they will be picking three highways to focus on as part of the High 3 Initiative to get the annual fatalities in Iowa below 300.

ISP Trooper/PIO Ryan DeVault, District 3

Trooper Devault said there have been at least 10 more fatalities in Iowa than at this same time last year. He says they’re trying to get motorists to “put the driving back into driving.”

In addition to law enforcement on the ground watching out for speeders and erratic driving, there will be eyes in the skies.

And, just because the focus Wednesday will be on the area two-lane roads, doesn’t mean you can skirt the law by using the interststate. Trooper Devault says they will still have a visible force watching over the four-lanes.