Atlantic Parks and Recreation Dept. Assistant Director Seth Staashelm reports the Buck Creek Dog Park at the Schildberg Recreation Area remains open, despite the beginning of construction on a parking area. Staashelm says they hope to have the parking lot in-place within a couple of weeks. In the meantime, persons bringing their animals to the park, are asked to park on the street.

The Taylor County Sheriff’s Office says one person is dead, another was critically hurt during a rollover accident Tuesday afternoon. In an update to our earlier report, authorities say a passenger in the car, 47-year old Theresa Moses, of Lenox, was flown to a hospital in Des Moines, where she later died. Another passenger, 54-year old Junior Chumbley, Jr., was flown to a Des Moines hospital, where he was reported to be in critical, but stable condition. A third passenger, 32-year old Kyle Gile, was flown to Des Moines and later released from the hospital. The driver of the car, 46-year old Rachel Reed, of Lenox, was treated and released from the hospital in Creston.

Officials say the accident happened at around 4:15-p.m., as Reed and her passengers were traveling west on 130^th Street near Yellowstone Avenue. Her 2005 Kia Sorento went out control on the gravel and rolled several times. Three occupants of the car were not wearing their seat belts and were ejected and a fourth was trapped in the vehicle.

The circumstances that led to the accident are still under investigation by the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office.

The Cass County Board of Supervisors have once again tabled action on approving funds  in support of an Atlantic Parks and Recreation Department application to Vision Iowa for a Community Attraction and Tourism (CAT) grant. The grant application is for $360,000 from Vision Iowa, for improvements and further development of the campground at the Schildberg Recreation Area, and the Pellet Wildlife Refuge Park.

The Board, after much discussion, decided it wanted Atlantic Parks and Rec Director Roger Herring to come up with some figures with regard to how proposed improvements to the campground at the Schildberg Recreation Area, would benefit the county as a whole, and not just Atlantic. Prior to their decision to table the matter until next week, most of the Board made it clear they were not in support of the County vowing to contribute $40,000 to help secure the Vision Iowa grant.

Supervisor Frank Waters was the first to say he was not for the County chipping in to secure the grant.  He says the people he’s spoken with in his district opposes the funds using tax dollars. Using the Local Option Sales Tax monies was brought up as a possible means of committing to the requested funds, but the Supervisors say they intended to use much of those funds to pay down existing debt, especially with regard to improvements for the ethanol site. Supervisor Mark Wedemeyer, who attended last week’s meeting of the Cass County Conservation Board, said that Board didn’t want to upgrade the Pellet Wildlife Refuge – an area tentatively included in the grant application – because it tends to flood, and because they don’t have the funds necessary to maintain it.

Supervisor Chuck Rieken said roads and bridges are the county’s prime focus right now, along with reducing the debt, so that other projects can be funded in the future. Frank Waters agreed. The City of Atlantic earlier this month committed $100,000 in support of the grant application, which requires a 50-percent local match in order for it to be considered. Parks and Rec Dept. Director Roger Herring has said other funds and donations of time, labor and resources would meet the 40-percent requirement for the in-kind portion of the local match. The grant application needs to be submitted by April 10^th.

In other business, the Supervisors approved the hiring of a temporary, full-time employee in the Treasurer’s Office during a time an employee there will be on medical leave. The Board however DENIED a proposal from the Cass County Secondary Roads Employee Group (CCSREG) for personnel to work four, 10-hour days from May 30^th through September 2nd. They would then return to their regular 8-hour per day shift effective Sept. 5^th.  Chuck Rieken was one of the Supervisors who opposed the request, because it hasn’t worked before, and because that’s not what the public wants.

POMEROY, Iowa (AP) – A court says Iowa authorities had no duty to protect residents of a nursing home from a sexual predator who assaulted a 95-year-old woman after being placed there by court order. The Iowa Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the state had no duty to supervise William Cubbage once he was discharged from its treatment program for dangerous sex offenders in 2010.

The court says state officials didn’t have to develop a safety plan for Cubbage once he was at the Pomeroy Care Center. Willis Hamilton is a lawyer representing the estate of the victim, who has since died. He says he can’t understand how state officials can argue Cubbage was too dangerous to be released but “put him in a nursing home with little old ladies” with no protections.

(In an update to our earlier post) The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says the fisherman who died Tuesday evening after falling from his boat on the Cedar River in Charles City has been identified as 54-year old Kevin Neal Endelman, of Charles City. Endelman had his small boat anchored just above a low-head dam on the Cedar River when he apparently fell out and went over the dam shortly after 7 p.m.

The man was pulled from the river downstream of the dam by the Charles City Fire and Rescue and was taken to Floyd County Medical Center in Charles City where he was pronounced dead. Also assisting at the scene were the Charles City Police Department and Floyd County Sheriff’s Department. The incident remains under investigation by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

A man from Hastings was transported to the Montgomery County Memorial Hospital, Monday, after he swerved his vehicle in an attempt to miss a deer on the road. The Mills County Sheriff’s Office says Brandon Feller was driving a 1995 Honda on Highway 59 at around 9-p.m., when the accident occurred. Officials say his car left the roadway and rolled over, possibly ejecting Feller.

The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports three recent arrests. On Monday, 47-year old John Ray Nolan Jr., of Council Bluffs, was arrested at the Pottawattamie County Jail on a Mills County warrant for Violation of Probation. His bond was set at $5,000. That same day, 35-year old Cherokee Nicole Tuttle, also of Council Bluffs, was arrested at the Pott. County Jail, on a Mills County warrant for in the Theft 2^nd Degree. Her bond was also set at $5,000.

And, on Tuesday, 35-year old Zachary Robert Jones, of Council Bluffs, was arrested following a traffic stop in Mills County, on a warrant out of Pottawattamie County. He was being held without bond.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), along with the Union County Sheriff’s Office, Tuesday, arrested 43-year old Jennifer Jean Hartley, of Thayer,  on a charge of Murder in the First Degree, a class A Felony, in the death investigation of Loretta Dillinger.

On December 2nd, 2015, a hunter located a decomposed body in a pond at 1024 Redwood Avenue near the Union County and Madison County line. The Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner in Ankeny performed an autopsy and determined the body to be that of 37-year old Loretta Dillinger.

Jennifer Jean Hartley

Through the investigation, DCI Agents determined that Jennifer Hartley acted with Jerry Dillinger to kill Loretta Dillinger. Hartley was part of a plan to have Loretta set fire to two residences, one in Greenfield and one in Thayer. Hartley provided her pistol to Jerry Dillinger to kill Loretta so she wouldn’t disclose any information about the fires. After the fires and death of Dillinger, Hartley knowingly helped conceal Loretta’s death.

Jennifer Hartley is being held in the Ringgold County Jail on $1 million cash-only bond. Jerry Dillinger plead two counts of first degree murder back in January. He was found dead in his jail cell last month, in what officials at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Oakdale said, was an apparent suicide.