(Updated) – (Atlantic, Iowa) – Members of the Atlantic City Council voted unanimously Wednesday afternoon, to pass a resolution that adjusts the overtime pay for Sergeants and the Assistant Police Chief, for the period covering Feb. 16, 2023, through March 17, 2023. As we previously reported, the Atlantic Police Department has undergone an extended period of staffing difficulties, with the day shift having been particularly impacted. The resolution does not cover the Police Chief. That is matter that will be worked out between the Mayor, City Administrator, and the Chief, according to Mayor Garrett.

Councilman Gerald Brink asked Chief Devin Hogue if the police force is fully staffed, or if there is added work being done?”

Councilmen Pat McCurdy and Brink….

Mayor Grace Garrett said of the Atlantic Police Department…

In other business, the Mayor and City Council recognized Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator Travis Hanson for obtaining his Grade 3 certification.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak cited a man following a property-damage accident this (Wednesday) morning. Authorities say at around 7:17-a.m., Police were called to the 100 block of W. Linden Street, for a reported two-vehicle accident.

During an investigation, officers determined a 2008 Accura TSX driven by 31-year-old Dalton D. Holbrook, of Elliott, was traveling eastbound on W. Linden. A 2015 Chrysler Town and Country van driven by 86-year-old Lorell Gene Viner, of Red Oak, was westbound on W. Linden.  When Viner turned left to enter the Burger King parking lot, he failed to yield, and his van struck the car. He was also driving a vehicle with an obstructed view, due to frost on the windshield.

Viner was issued a written warning for Failure to Yield Upon Left Hand Turn, and driving with obstructed vision. The vehicles sustained an estimated $5,000 damage each. No injuries were reported.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Transportation says they’re seeing an uptick in calls about the color of the streetlights on Interstate 380 in Cedar Rapids. The D-O-T says the lights are unintentionally purple — the result of the deterioration of the L-E-D lights. The Assistant Director for the DOT’s Maintenance Bureau, Mohamed Mohamed, , says the L-E-D lights initially are blue-ish purple in color before a paint gets put over them to give the white light look. He tells K-C-R-G T-V that in the five years since the lights have been installed, the paint has flaked away, causing the lights to shine purple.

“The biggest thing is some people had the misconception that you know the D-O-T is changing the light colors, and you know that we’re actually in a transition phase. We are not,” he says. “it’s actually a flaw. It’s not the way that it’s supposed to be.” Mohamed says the company that distributes the lights is replacing them under the warranty, so there is no cost for the replacement. Around half the 800 lights that turned purple have been replaced and they will continue to replace the lights as needed.

(Greenfied, Iowa) – The Adair County Board of Supervisors, Wednesday (Today), met in a regular session. The Board approved a Courtyard Use Permit from the Greenfield Chamber for an Outdoor Farmer’s Market. The event will take place every Thursday from June through September. The event had previously been held in the City Park. In other business, the Adair County Supervisors approved rental of the 4-H Building for the fall Safety Meeting. And, they approved participation forms with regard to the nationwide Opiod Settlement with Teva, Allergan, CVS, Walgreens and Walmart.

County Auditor/Board Secretary Mandy Berg explains…

(The County’s share could be $166,000)

The Board approved renewal of the County’s various medical/dental/vision insurance plans. And, they authorized the Board Chair to sign-off on: The N-33 Orient Bridge Project, Airport Road Paving Project, East Iowa Street Paving Project Plans, and, the Right-Of-Way contracts for the N-72 Culvert Extension Project.

County Engineer Nick Kauffman provided the Board with his weekly report on Secondary Roads Department Maintenance and Activities.

(Creston, Iowa) – The Creston Police Department reports one arrest took place, Tuesday. 18-year-old Ella Jean Hoffman, of Creston, was arrested at around 6-p.m., for Possession of a Controlled Substance Marijuana/1st Offense. Hoffman was cited and released on a Promise to Appear.

(Radio Iowa) – Students from Northwestern College in Orange City are heading out this week for spring break — but their trips are working mission trips — not a chance to sit on a beach and soak up the sun. Northwestern director of admissions, Patrick Hummel says they 13 trips planned this year including four international trips Hummel says all the students volunteer for the trips and about 43 percent of graduates do a spring trip. He says students are working to help others and they benefit from being in places that are culturally different from their own and where they grew up.

He says students join teams and aren’t necessarily paired up with friends, so they get the added benefit of developing new friends on campus — and he says it connects them in new ways and in different ways.

(Radio Iowa) – After years of flood recovery efforts, a southwest Iowa group is shifting its focus to disaster preparedness. The Fremont County Disaster Coalition, previously known as the Fremont County Long Term Disaster Recovery Group, will meet this weekend. The group was formed after the 2019 Missouri River floods that devastated the region. Coalition secretary Mandy Maher says the meeting will highlight the group’s accomplishments and lay groundwork for the future.

Since the 2019 floods, the group has distributed nearly 240-thousand dollars in financial assistance and helped coordinate other goods and services to aid the 240-some households in the county impacted by the floods. The group is looking to disaster preparedness, as Maher says trouble is always lurking around the corner, whether it’s a tornado, a fire, a flood or a derecho.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak report three recent arrests. Authorities say 44-year-old Chase Michael Hill, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 7:45-p.m., Tuesday, on an active Adams County warrant for Failure To Appear on a traffic offense. Hill was transported to the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and held on a $600 cash-only bond. Red Oak Police arrested 42-year-old Penny Marie Griggs, of Red Oak, at around 6:23-p.m., Tuesday, for Driving While Suspended. Her bond was set at $491. And, at around 1-a.m. today (Wednesday), Red Oak Police arrested 37-year-old Jacob Wayne Dykes-Vargas, of Council Bluffs.

Dykes-Vargas was arrested on a Pottawattamie County warrant for Violation of Probation on on original Controlled Substance/2nd offense violation. Vargas was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $2,000 bond, while awaiting extradition to Pott. County.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Cancer Registry is marking its 50th year and celebrating the fact cancer is much less deadly in Iowa today than in 1973 when the first report was published. Registry director Mary Charlton, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa, credits decades of advances in medicine, treatment and early screening technology.

“Cancer mortality is declining, and survival among people who are diagnosed with cancer is getting better as the years go by,” Charlton says. “So what used to be kind of a death sentence back in the ’70s versus now, we have over 160,000 Iowans living with a history of cancer and doing great.” Early detection is the best defense against cancer, she says. Fifty years ago, about ten-thousand cancer cases were being diagnosed each year statewide, while today, it’s more than 20-thousand.

While more Iowans are being told they have cancer than five decades ago, many more are now surviving the fight. “So things like breast cancer or prostate cancer, back in the 1970s, less than 75% of people diagnosed with those types of cancers survived at least five years,” Charlton says, “but now over 90% survive at least five years.” There was troubling news in the report, as new national rankings now show Iowa has the second highest rate of new cancer cases in the U-S.

“I was really surprised to see that we had climbed that high,” Charlton says. “We’re only behind Kentucky, which is down in the Tobacco Belt. They’ve been number-one for a long time and have a very high smoking rate. We do not have as high as smoking rate, but it does seem like we’re just high. We have high rates of lots of different types of cancers in our population and we’re really trying to figure out why that is and what we can do to address that.”

The annual report allows doctors and researchers to focus on how to prevent and treat cancer, she says, and it provides Iowans with the knowledge they need to get advance screening and improve survival rates across the board. “Breast, prostate, lung and colorectal cancers continue to make up almost half of all cancer cases in Iowa,” Charlton says. “In terms of cancer deaths, lung cancer continues to be the most common cause of cancer deaths, accounting for one out of every four cancer deaths in Iowa, with colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer also in the top three.”

The report projects 20-thousand-800 Iowans will be diagnosed with cancer this year, an increase of 800 from last year. It also forecasts 62-hundred Iowans will die from cancer this year, a drop of 100 from a year ago. See the full report here: https://shri.public-health.uiowa.edu/

(Radio Iowa) – A House committee has approved a bill to require that developers get permits from every other state other along proposed carbon pipeline routes before construction could begin here. Representative Steven Holt, a Republican from Denison, is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

“Why would we want construction of this pipeline to take place in Iowa and have our valuable farmland disrupted if it ultimately is never completed?” Holt asked. The bill was approved last (Tuesday) night by Holt’s committee. It outlines how farmers could file claims if tile lines are damaged or the topsoil from cropland displaced by the pipelines isn’t restored. The bill also would require voluntary participation from property owners along 90 percent of the route before state regulators could grant the pipeline companies authority to seize the rest of the land.

The renewable fuels industry oppose the bill. Representative Bobby Kaufmann, a Republican from Wilton who voted for the bill, says private property rights are worth protecting. “This legislation is not anti-agriculture. This legislation is not anti-ethanol, period!” Kaufmann said. “I’m going to spend the rest of my adult life relying on the price of corn for my survival. The last thing that I personally would do would be to do something to harm agriculture.”

During last (Tuesday) night’s committee meeting, Representatives Megan Jones of Sioux Rapids and Megan Srinivas, of Des Moines, announced they would not vote on this or any other bills dealing with the pipelines. Both said their families may have a financial stake in the pipelines since the routes pass through their land and the companies offer compensation for those easements.