NEWTON, Iowa [KCCI-TV] — A former office coordinator for a Jasper County Community Development Department is facing felony theft and forgery charges for allegedly writing checks worth thousands of dollars to herself over the last year. KCCI says, according to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, 31-year-old Shelby Hobbs was arrested Wednesday, after the conclusion of an investigation into misused county funds.

Court documents allege that, since August 2023, Hobbs wrote a total of 42 checks to herself from county accounts, totaling $17,458,41. All of the checks were either cashed or deposited into Hobbs’ personal bank account. Hobbs allegedly admitted the thefts to investigators.

She’s been charged with one count of first-degree theft, a Class C felony; and 11 counts of forgery, a Class D felony. An initial appearance was held Wednesday morning and Hobbs was released from jail on her own recognizance. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 22.

ANKENY, Iowa [KCCI-TV] — The Polk County Sheriff’s Office has identified a child who died in a head-on crash, Sunday. Authorities previously said a two-vehicle crash was reported at about 1:30 p.m. Sunday on Northwest Fisher Lane, just north of the entrance to Cottonwood Recreation Area near Saylorville Lake. Each vehicle was occupied by two people.

The occupants of the northbound vehicle — the driver and a juvenile passenger — were both transported to an area hospital where the child, identified Wednesday as 10-year-old Maxwell Harry Amenson of Polk City, died. Amenson was going to be a fourth grader this fall at Big Creek Elementary School.

The driver and passenger of the southbound vehicle were treated for minor injuries at the scene and released.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — [KETV, Omaha] – A Council Bluffs neighborhood is dealing with a sinkhole. KETV reports the city and church are working together to figure out how it gave way, bringing down a brick wall and shifting foundation by several feet in some spots. A city spokesperson says high groundwater associated with flooding from the Missouri River could be to blame, forcing the church to reorganize.

Pastor Joseph Hall said a drain collapsed last month, forcing a water main to burst, shifting the foundation and compromising half of the building. Prolonged gushing from the water main rupture cost the church one of its five buildings, now believed to be a total loss, and pushing more groups into the four other buildings on campus that was used as a youth building and other purposes.

A city spokesperson said high groundwater associated with flooding from the Missouri River may be to blame, but that there’s still more to figure out as the city and church work together.

(Radio Iowa) – After 14 years of legal wrangling, plans for a 30 MILLION dollar regional airport between Pella and Oskaloosa are officially paused. In 2012, elected officials in Pella, Oskaloosa and Mahaska County signed an agreement creating the South Central Regional Airport Agency to build and operate an airport in rural Mahaska County. Landowners at the site objected and filed a lawsuit. Mahaska County Supervisors who took office in 2017 tried to get the county out of the deal and there was a lawsuit over that.

In June of 2022, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled the agreement was unconstitutional. Last week, the Regional Airport Agency’s board notified the cities they cannot acquire the remaining property necessary for the airport, but will continue to own and lease the land purchased for the project.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Reynolds is scheduled to hold a news conference at the Iowa Capitol late this (Thursday) morning. According to a media advisory, she will be announcing new state programs available to Iowans. On Wednesday afternoon, Reynolds touring three northwest Iowa cities hit by severe flooding last month. After a stop in Rock Valley, Reynolds told reporters she’s making lists of unmet needs, like housing. Reynolds said public infrastructure is still a major concern. Reynolds also visited Spencer and Sioux Rapids.

(Radio Iowa) – It’s been almost four years since a powerful derecho blasted across Iowa, causing some 11-billion dollars damage, and the rebuilding of our landscapes is still far from complete. The storm’s winds of up to 140-miles an hour wiped out millions of trees and a grant program is offering funds to help communities recover and replant. Ellie Jones is the Iowa D-N-R’s community disaster recovery coordinator, and she’s partnering with Trees Forever. “We lost a lot more trees than we can replace within a couple of years,” Jones says. “Between urban and non-urban areas, we lost over seven-million trees. We’ve had this grant program going on pretty much since the year after the derecho happened, but unfortunately, with the amount of funds that we have available and the sheer amount of recovery that needs to be done, it’s probably going to – hopefully – continue for the next 10 years as well.”

The Community Forestry Grant Program offers grants of between 500 and 10-thousand dollars to purchase and plant trees suitable to Iowa. “This is a grant that’s for public landowners,” Jones says. “Unfortunately, we’re not able to work with private landowners, especially with this grant, but if you are a public entity or work on behalf of a city, you can apply and you have to be in one of the 27 counties that were in the governor’s proclamation of disaster.” Unlike with previous grants, she says matching funds are -not- required from communities with this effort. Cedar Rapids was one of the worst-hit communities, losing more than half of its tree canopy to the derecho’s winds on August 10th of 2020. Jones says trees help to purify our waterways, and they filter out carbon and other harmful pollutants from the air. Trees also help to offset what’s known as the urban heat island effect.

“In cities, because there’s so little green space, they tend to be a lot hotter. Since we have these really high temperatures in our cities,” Jones says, “people are more prone to heat-borne illnesses and things of that nature. When we lost a lot of these trees in our urban areas, you’re making that problem worse and we’re not getting the benefits that those trees provided.” The deadline to apply is August 26th.

To apply, visit www.iowadnr.gov/urbanforestry

(Radio Iowa) – The State Transportation Commission discussed then approved a settlement with the city of North Liberty over a road grant that didn’t produce the jobs it promised. The D-O-T’s Deb Arp says the RISE grant was for three million dollars to construct a roadway and roundabout. “And this was contingent on the creation of 307 new jobs at an expanded GEICO national auto insurance claims processing processing facility within three years of project completion,” she says. The roadway opened, but the company did not add any new jobs. “Based on the RISE project settlement policy the city has agreed to a repayment of one-million-77-thousand-368 dollars,” Arp says.

This RISE grant was based on an immediate opportunity to help a business, but the grants can also be based on the potential of the roadway to open up an area for more development. Arp says the potential to help businesses in the future was considered in the North Liberty repayment. “There is still a lot of area that could develop ,so that roadway regardless of whether those jobs were created or not is still there and may assist development in the future,” Arp says. “So that’s why we kind of give them a credit.” Commission chair Sally Stutsman questioned why there weren’t any new jobs created. She says she doesn’t want to see that become something that happens with these grants. “It comes across to me as a way to get a road built to a business with no guarantees that that business is going to produce jobs. It just doesn’t sit well with me, I’m sorry,” Stutsman says.

Arp says each request undergoes a scoring process, but they sometimes do not end up producing the jobs they were expected to produce. “We’re assisting the city and the county who are doing you know I believe their their very best to to work with these local companies. You know sometimes things just don’t materialize. Did the city proceed in good faith? I think in most cases we think they do,” she says. She says the area where the roadway section was built has a lot of future potential to help with business expansion.

The settlement was approved at the Commission meeting Tuesday.

(Iowa News Service) – Health care experts are reminding Iowans to be careful in the summertime sun. From sunburns and bike safety to water accidents and sports injuries, they remind people sometimes virtual care is available and reduces the time to see a provider.

Dr. Donna O’Shea, chief medical Officer of population health for UnitedHealthcare, said the company provides various tips to staying safe in the sun but reminds Iowans it is important to pay close attention to danger signs when outside for an extended period of time in Iowa’s sometimes sweltering summertime heat and high humidity.

“There is such a condition as overheating and heatstroke,” O’Shea pointed out. “It’s important to recognize those signs early. The signs of overheating do include headaches, nausea or dizziness. And it can be especially important to watch children because their internal cooling systems aren’t fully developed yet.”

Iowa has escaped the deadly heat which had more than 36 million Americans under a warning in recent days, but temperatures are expected to reach into the mid-90s next week with higher humidity. O’Shea reminded people medical assessment for a variety of injuries is also available virtually, 24/7.

She noted virtual care can be crucial in the state’s rural areas where people often can’t make it quickly to an urgent care facility or for helping decide if they need care for less serious conditions. And it’s available 24/7. “If it’s related to hydration or heat stroke, if you’re able to keep fluids down, virtual care can help you determine how much, how long to wait before you go to the emergency room,” O’Shea explained. “Same thing even for sunburns or bike safety. Do I need to go in? Do you think I need stitches? We don’t think about that.”

O’Shea also reminded people to watch kids around water since drowning is the number one cause of death for children between the ages of one and four. The state health department said it is the leading cause of death by unintentional injury of young children in Iowa.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The City Council in Atlantic, Wednesday evening, heard an update from Mayor Grace Garrett, with regard to a visit late last month from a design team from Iowa State University, and a tour they took of the City, along with some City officials, in advance of a project selected by the Mayor. Garrett said she was one of six mayors from across the State chosen in April, and invited to join the “Mayor’s design workshop.”Other mayors include those from Council Bluffs, Marshalltown, Ottumwa, Cedar Falls and Fort Madison.

The workshop will be held July 30-31, 2024, in Ames. The goals of the program are to assist mayors in addressing complex design and planning challengers. They offer design,m financing strategies and implementation ideas.

Councilperson Elaine Otte said the City could choose one of two projects that would make the best improvements to the City. One was Bull Creek, the other was some sort of a safety building at the Schildberg Recreation Area. Councilman Jim Behrens said if the Bull Creek project is chosen, the ISU team will work with the Army Corps of Engineers, to overcome any issues the Corps has with the problematic area, including erosion and storm water run-off.

The Mayor chose to offer a comprehensive plan for Bull Creek.  She will make a presentation to the ISU Design Team on the project, and over the next 18 months, ISU plans to have a follow-up workshops involving the resource team. Studio courses will be developed for students around the project, to include support for preferences to address specific needs for the City of Atlantic, as they pertain to Bull Creek.

There is no charge to the City for input from the ISU Design Team.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The City Council in Atlantic, Wednesday evening, passed an Order temporarily restricting parking on Palm Street, from 7th to 11th, and 10th Street, 150-feet west of the intersection with Palm. The restrictions are with regard to the Cass County Fair, and will be in effect from 6-a.m. July 27th, to 6-a.m. July 28th.

They also approved Temporary Road Closures and No Parking restrictions on select streets during the requested dates and times for the 2024 RAGBRAI ® event that takes place July 22nd & 23rd. The City expects at least 25,000 people coming to town on their bicycles, as well as support vehicles, event vendors and more. On a related note, Atlantic Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bailey Smith reported all those who were looking to find temporary housing for the large bicycling event, have found a place to stay. “We placed everybody,” she said.  A map of the route into and out of town can be found at https://atlanticragbrai.com/maps/

Bailey reports they have 211 volunteers to help make the event as smooth as possible for locals and those coming into town, but they could still use another 20-to 50 or so more, people to help. That includes traffic control, trash clean-up during and after the event. Volunteers will receive a free, orange shirt identifying them as being associated with the event..

Atlantic City Hall building

In other business, the Atlantic City Council received a report from the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission, which met Tuesday evening. City Administrator John Lund said the Commission had received some concerns with regard to the impact of storm-water run-off to the Camblin Hills housing and childcare development project, and the surrounding properties. City Engineer Dave Sturm addressed those concerns. Sturm said “There’s no doubt this development will increase the run-off from this parcel, however about 75-percent of this site [has] a ridgeline that runs from Lot 1 to Lot 48…that drains into the existing detention basin that comes off of Loma Circle.” That basin, he said, was designed and installed about 25-to 30-years ago to control the run-off to Bull Creek, and to have the capacity for the development of the land to be developed.

Sturm said “When this project is complete, we will clean-out that basin,” to remove some of the silt that’s been deposited over the years , but it is still adequate to handle the increased run-off from the development project. And, the Childcare Center will have its own detention basin. Another detention basin will be added on the southwest side of the housing development. Following the P&Z and Engineer Sturms reports, the Atlantic City Council approved the preliminary plat for the Camblin Hills Project, and the 1st Reading of an ordinance changing the Zoning Classification from R-2 (Low Density-Single Family) residential to R-4 (Multi-family) residential, and amending the Zoning Map to reflect the change.