(Radio Iowa) -A federal board that regulates train acquisitions heard from Iowans for two hours last (Tuesday) night speaking out against Canadian Pacific’s sprawling acquisition of Kansas City Southern. Michelle Solis Russell, of Davenport, called the silence from her own city council deafening. Russell says, “Not one person stood up when you asked for city officials, and the reason is, here in our town, we don’t agree with our city leader’s decision to accept the CP money.”

Ahead of the public comment period, Canadian Pacific offered money to towns in exchange for not opposing the acquisition, including ten-million dollars promised to Davenport, three-million dollars to both Bettendorf and Muscatine, and 750-thousand dollars to Le Claire. The U.S. Surface Transportation Board extended its public comment meeting into the night as speakers lined up to oppose Canadian Pacific’s expansion all the way to Mexico. Rebecca Howe is the president of the Merrill Hotel in Muscatine, one of the many railroad towns in eastern Iowa expecting to see some of the highest increases in train traffic.

“With the railroad coming in and it’s really unclear as to exactly what they are doing,” Howe says. “That’s going to have a drastic effect on the downtown and the riverfront which is the biggest asset Muscatine has.” Towns in eastern Iowa are anticipated to see the highest traffic increases nationally. An environmental study estimated an additional 15 trains per day, on average. The board is expected to decide whether to approve the deal by early next year.

(reporting by Zachary Oren Smith, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – A jury in northwest Iowa’s Plymouth County only deliberated for about an hour, Tuesday, before finding an elderly Merrill man guilty of murdering his step-son. In addition, 84-year-old Thomas Knapp was also convicted of five other charges, including willful injury and domestic abuse. Prosecutor Darin Raymond played two 9-1-1 calls made by Knapp’s wife, Darlene, in May of 2020 when Knapp fought with her and shot his step-son, 51-year-old Kevin Juzek. Knapp: “I’m so scared for my son and I know he’s going to shoot me now.” Dispatcher: “Just stay on the phone with me until they get there, okay, Darlene, don’t hang up with me.” Knapp: “Okay, I can do that, yeah.” Dispatcher: “They’re a couple miles away from you right now, okay? Just stay on the phone with me.”

Raymond also played a 30-minute long police interview with Knapp after his arrest as part of his closing arguments. In the recording, Knapp admitted shooting Juzek because he was mad at him for a variety of reasons, including that Juzek apparently knocked over a birdbath in the yard.  ***NOTE LANGUAGE** Police: “What was Kevin doing before you shot him?” Knapp: “Trying to open the door.” Police: “Okay, he wasn’t in the bedroom at that time?” Knapp: “No, he was trying to open the door. I shot him through the goddamn door.”

The defense attorneys told the jury in their closing arguments that Knapp shot Juzek in a fit of a rage and should be found guilty only of voluntary manslaughter. Knapp faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison when he is sentenced October 7th.

(UPDATED) [Atlantic, Iowa] – The newly constructed Atlantic McDonald’s restaurant is set to hold what’s known as a “soft opening” for lunch, Thursday, Sept. 15^th, nearly three months after the projected opening date.

Ric Hanson/photos (9/14/22)

The old restaurant – which was 40-years old – closed on March 24^th, and was torn-down. The structure was slated to have been torn-down on February 22^nd, but Atlantic McDonald’s owner operator Blake Zogleman says matters out of their control, plus a wet March, resulted in a bit of an adjustment on the timeline.

Blake’s family has owned the store since 2013 when they purchased it from the Mueller family. It’s not the only restaurant they own, but it does offer a unique opportunity.

He says their hours of operation on Thursday this week, will be from about 11-a.m. Until 11-p.m. Beginning Friday, their regular hours will be from 5-a.m. Until 11-p.m. If you see cars in the parking lot and people going in the store today (Wednesday), it’s because they are hosting an employee and family appreciation dinner, and making sure the equipment is running smoothly and employees are familiar with the brand new equipment.

And yes, the ice cream machine does work!

At some stores, including the old Atlantic McDonald’s, there were some sporadic issues with the machine. Blake said they have a lot of experienced staff working for the new restaurant, and some new faces.

The new store features two drive-through lanes, instead of one, and two side-by-side order points, instead of one, in order to improve service. A grand opening for the Atlantic McDonald’s will take place the first week of November, with additional details to be provided on the Leonard Management McDonald’s Facebook page.

Bishop construction was hired to do the work by McDonald’s Real Estate Company, based in Elkhorn, Neb.

(Creston, Iowa) – Police in Creston report the arrest Tuesday morning, of a woman wanted on a warrant from an outside agency. 42-year-old Melissa Sara Stow, of Creston, was arrested at her residence, and transported to the Adams County Jail.  And, an auto parts store in Creston reported the theft from behind their building, of two truck airbags and two, 5-gallon buckets of hydraulic fluid. The loss was estimated at slightly more than $519.

(Radio Iowa) – Prolonged drought across the region has pushed the U-S Army Corps of Engineers to lower Missouri River levels from Nebraska City to Kansas City by a full foot. The lower levels will affect boat traffic and could impact municipal water supplies and other utilities that rely on the river. Missouri River Basin Water Management Director John Remus (REE-mus) says conditions have been getting worse since the drought first began to emerge in July of 2020. “In March, about 70% of the upper basin was experiencing some level of drought and about 20% of it was severe drought, very, very dry,” Remus says. “We have had some good rains throughout the year up there, but the conditions have improved, but not enough to really help the runoff.”

Remus says lower water levels will have an impact on navigation this fall.  “Of course, that means more trips or more barges to get the same amount of product up and down the river,” Remus says. Navigation continues on the Missouri, though barges will have to lighten their loads to float on the river. The navigation season will end on November 28th, which is three days early. Remus says even prolonged, heavy rains likely wouldn’t make up the difference in low soil moisture levels, as they’ve been so low for so long. “The wild card is really snowpack next year,” he says. “We had next-to-nothing for plains snowpack in 2022, and we had a below-average mountain snowpack. So unless we get better snowpack in the northern part of the basin, we’re probably going to be facing what we’ve seen this year again next year.”

Flows into the Missouri River have been reduced to cope with a much lower flood control pool in the six upstream reservoirs.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Transportation continues to see an impact on traffic levels from gas prices. The D-O-T’s Stuart Anderson says traffic had been coming back after the pandemic, but gas prices started making an impact. “Definitely noticed back in April, started seeing some of those impacts of traffic in April of 2022 compared with April of 2019 — the pre pandemic traffic levels in the state — was down four percent. And it’s generally been down three to four percent each month since then,” Anderson says. He says the May number was not as negative as some of the other months, but that is believed to be skewed by people eager to get out and enjoy the Memorial Day weekend.

“But in June is about three percent down, July four percent. And we just got the August numbers here yesterday and they’re down three percent,” Anderson says. “So we’ll see if September, October, November numbers start changing now that we’ve seen fuel prices drop a little bit at the pump.” Anderson says the drop in travel isn’t enough to cause a concern about road use taxes. “We benefit in that our state road use tax fund does not rely just on fuel taxes. It also consists of revenues from vehicle registration fees. And so that helps mitigate some of these fluctuations we see from time to time,” according to Anderson.

He says supply chain issues in the car industry have helped keep registration fees up. “We’ve seen numbers of vehicles sold, probably, on average, be lower than normal, that that’s been been offset a bit by that high demand for vehicles means that vehicle prices have been higher, particularly used vehicle prices. And so the registration fees in Iowa based in part on the price of the vehicles,” Anderson says.

He says the increase in money to the road fund from the increase registration fees has helped keep the road use tax fund close to where they want it to be.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A man from Polk County was arrested at around 1:11-a.m. today (Wednesday), in Red Oak. Authorities say 25-year-old Ali Rasheed Muhammad, of Des Moines, was arrested following a traffic stop. Upon further investigation, it was determined Muhammad was in possession of a controlled substance/1st offense. He was also cited for no valid driver’s license and a registration violation.

Muhammad was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

(Area) – Special Elections were held in Adams, Adair-Union, and Shelby Counties in our listening area, Tuesday. Unofficial results in Adams County, indicate voters there rejected an $8.5 million bond issue that would have provided for multiple renovations at the county’s courthouse. The measure failed by 238 NO votes to 229 YES votes. The bond issue would have meant an increase of $0.63 per $1,000 valuation on property taxes, or around $30 annually for a $100,000 home, and would have served to provided sufficient space for the Sheriff’s Office but also a more secure mode for transporting prisoners.

In Shelby County, voters in the Harlan Community School District approved a $22.9 million bond issue. Unofficial results show Proposition TD (the bond) passed with 1003 yes votes to 660 no votes (60.31% to 39.69%). The second measure, Proposition TE (The Revenue Purpose Statement), passed by 1,104 yes to 538 no votes (67.24% to 32.76%). The District will now proceed with renovations and upgrades to all four buildings on HCSD campus, as previously mentioned. The school district will contribute $9.1 million from its state funding toward completion of the projects.

Voters in the Orient-Macksburg Community School District, Tuesday, approved a 10-year renewal of the PPEL (Physical Plant and Equipment Levy), not to exceed One-dollar per thousand dollars of assessed property valuation, effective with the collection of taxes in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024. Public Measure D passed by 59 YES votes to just nine NO votes. A simple majority was needed to pass. Officials say only 68 out 606 (or, 11%) of the registered voters cast their ballots during the election.

And, votes in the Creston Community School District appear to have fallen short of the amount needed to pass a proposed $29.4-million bond issue. Officials say (Unofficial) combined Adam & Union County results indicated 817 voted against the measure, while 812 voted to pass it. A 60% majority was needed for the second attempt to pass the measure in the district. A similar vote fell about 4% short of the 60% in March.

School officials were hoping to use proceeds from the bond issue, along with $15.5 million in SAVE funds and $1.1 million in PPEL dollars for the project, to make an addition to the existing facility housing 1st through 8th graders. The project would have also allowed for the retirement of the district’s early childhood center housing pre-K and kindergarten students, thus creating a centralized campus for pre-K-through-5th graders. Also included was construction of a multipurpose facility plus performing arts and classroom facility improvements.

(Radio Iowa) – Several people turned out to speak at Monday’s Pocahontas Area School Board meeting on a petition that calls for the removal of Superintendent Joe Kramer. The board received the petition last month, which cites concerns about the amount of staff turnover, declining enrollment, alleged retaliation, spending issues, and a possible hostile working environment.

Pocahontas Area School Board President Paul Berte told those attending, that the Department of Education and district attorney say a petition is not a vehicle to challenge board employment decisions or work assignments. “The board will allow comment on the petition but will not respond to the comments and will not take any action on the superintendent’s contract today and that’s under the guidance of the district attorney,” he says.

Pocahontas Area High School/Middle School building. (photo from school website)

Irene Carlson was a Pocahontas Area school board member for six years under a previous superintendent. “Up until the last few years PSC was known to be one of the finest schools in Iowa more and more issues have arisen extra school from janitors, bus drivers, and educators having concerns that the current administration is out of touch with these employees as the school board has lost touch with the citizens of the school district. We need to get this problem resolved before it’s too late. We have lost good teachers bus drivers, cooks, parents and staff. I believe it’s time to clean house starting at the top.”

Others voiced their displeasure about a lack of communication with several of the board members. There were some who spoke in defense of Kramer, including former school board member Dan Duitscher. “All the years that I was on when we did our annual reviews of Mr. Kramer, they’re all very positive with all the members of the board at that time. Never once was I ever contacted about Mr. Kramer about things in a negative way,” he says. “When you’re superintendent, you have to make decisions that will not make everyone happy. The accomplishments that Mr. Kramer has been here having been made where we’re sitting right down this high school, which was for him and with his advice. Also the upgrades of elementary school.”

Another speaker said, “either the school board fixes the mess the district is in, or voters will fix it in November of 2023.”
The petition was signed by more than 230 Pocahontas Area residents.

(Radio Iowa) – The Department of Transportation is recommending several awards for rail projects to be voted on for approval by the Transportation Commission next month. Rail director, Amanda Martin, says one recommendation is for a Buena Vista County business.  “Platinum crush is building a new soybean crush plant that will procure soybeans and process them into livestock feed and vegetable oil. The 37 million dollar plan includes a private loop track that can accommodate five unit trains.”

She says the recommendation is for a loan and a grant. “This will create 51 jobs at an average of over 22 dollars per hour. And the total project costs for this rail improvement is over 14 million dollars,” she says. “We’re recommending a loan award of a two million dollars and a grant for 612-thousand dollars.” A Woodbury County project is also recommended for state help. “The Floyd Valley transload. They’re building a transload for shipping to and from the Sioux City area. The proposed project will add the needed rail infrastructure, so including a switch and a track to create to translate and connect to the B-N-S-F railroad,” Martin says.

The recommendation is also for a loan and grant. “This project is anticipated to create 20 jobs at an average of wage of 25 dollars per hour. And the total project cost is 981-thousand dollars. We’re recommending a loan in the amount of 664-thousand-800 dollars and a grant of 120-thousand dollars.” Ice Cap Cold Storage in Council Bluffs would also get funding. “So phase two of this cold storage project includes 14-hundred-58 feet of rail track in spurs that will provide access to the newly under construction Ice Cap cold storage facility, and then future expansion,” according to Martin.

This project is anticipated to create 48 jobs and the recommendation is for a loan at 503-thousand-315 dollars and a grant of 576-thousand dollars. A project in Clayton County will help Pattison Sand.” The project will continue construction of rail to add an additional 400 feet of track for three rail spurs. The total project cost is two-pint-seven million dollars — and we’re recommending a loan of one-milliond-650-thosuand dollars,” Martin says. Two rail feasibility studies are also part of the recommendations.

“The Mills County Economic Development Foundation seeks to develop approximately 217 acres of land located south Pacific Junction into a railport transload facility,” she says. Funding is also recommended for the Boonville North load transit transload facility study.

The state Transportation Commission will vote on approval of the recommendations at its next meeting.