Two Carter Lake Police officers rescued a seriously injured 74-year-old woman from a mobile home fire early this (Tuesday) morning. Carter Lake Police Chief Shawn Kannedy says when officers Ryan Gonsior and Ron Hansen arrived at the mobile home park on North Ninth Street at about 2:30-a.m., they heard a weak cry for help from a woman in one of the units.

As smoke poured out of the structure, the officers quickly forced their way inside, where they found the unidentified woman on the floor behind the door. Seeing only her arm, they grabbed the woman, and pulled her to safety.

Carter Lake Fire and Rescue transported her to Creighton University Medical Center. She was later taken to the St. Elizabeth Regional Burn Center in Lincoln, NE.

Carter Lake and Crescent fire departments extinguished the blaze, which caused substantial damage to the home, and some surrounding sheds.

Six employees at five separate businesses received criminal citations for selling alcohol to minors, last week. Officials with the Southwest Iowa Narcotics Enforcement Task Force (SWINE) report the citations were issued as part of an undercover operation conducted at a total of eight businesses in Council Bluffs, on Friday, June 3^rd.

Cited for selling alcohol to persons under the age of 21, was: Jenni Null, an employee of Sugars Lounge; Michaela Hotz, an employee of the German Beer Haus; Main Street Tavern employee Brenda Donaldson; Do Rock Inn employees Derek Rodwell and Shelly Biggs; and, J-&-B’s Lounge employee Matthew Way.

Those businesses which were in compliance, and whose employees refused the sale of alcohol to minors, were the Venue, Salty Dog Bar & Grill, and Goofy’s Corner, all in Council Bluffs.

The undercover operation was conducted with the assistance of both an 18-year old female and male. Officials say the compliance checks will continue on an unannounced basis in the near future.

w/ News Director Ric Hanson

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A public hearing will be held Wednesday morning in Atlantic, with regard to a proposed preliminary plat in the Walnut Grove Subdivision, Washington Township. The meeting will be held during the Cass County Board of Supervisor’s meeting, which starts at 9-a.m.

Also on the board’s agenda Wednesday, is action on expense appropriations for Fiscal Year 2012. That includes funding request appropriations. If there is no change from budgeted amounts, no additional action will be necessary.

Other business includes discussion and/or action on: a contract for legal services related to funding for the northwest Water-Sewer extension project; a contract for computer services, FY 2011-2012 (Licensed Code and System Hardware/Network/Software support); certification of county officers’ deputies’ base salaries; and, determining the compensation of “other employees” (other than those who are under a bargaining unit- or other employment- contracts.

The Board will also act on approving a 28-E agreement with Adair County, for service provided by Cass County Engineer Charles Marker.

ADEL, Iowa (AP) – Tubing or sunbathing along central Iowa’s Raccoon River in the nude could soon be against county law.

The Dallas County Board of Supervisors is scheduled Tuesday (today) to consider a new ordinance that would ban nudity in county areas accessible to the public. Board chairman Kim Chapman told The Des Moines Register that county officials have gotten complaints about nudity on the river. Sheriff Chad Leonard asked for the item to be placed on the board agenda.

Harold Wells operates the Raccoon River Retreat Center near Van Meter. He says his guests occasionally sunbathe nude on a nearby sandbar. Wells says people who live along rivers have always stripped occasionally, adding, “I don’t know why there should be an ordinance now.”

Enforcement officers with the Iowa Department of Transportation will be busy over the next three days checking out semis and other large vehicles. The department is taking part in a 72-hour continuous enforcement effort that’s happening across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Major Ned Lewis, with the DOT, says 60 officers will be inspecting all vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds that are on Iowa’s roadways.

“We will have motor vehicle enforcement officers located throughout the state at our interstate scale sites at Avoca, Dallas County, Jasper County and Brandon,” Lewis said. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) Roadcheck runs today (Tuesday) through Thursday. During last year’s event, officers conducted more than 65,000 inspections across the U.S.

“The most important part of this is finding vehicles or drivers who are not in compliance with the rules and regulations,” Lewis said. “Those drivers and/or vehicles can be placed out of service for serious safety violations.”

Most vehicles or drivers are placed out of service because of issues with their brakes or discrepancies with the driver’s logbook. The 2010 Roadcheck found vehicle compliance rates of 80-percent, while drivers had a 95.6-percent pass rate.

“Most of the vehicles and drivers do a great job. We do put a fair amount of vehicles out of service for severe safety violations,” Lewis said.

Busses are not required to stop at the scale locations in Iowa.

(Radio Iowa)

Despite “near-heroic” efforts by the Council Bluffs wastewater treatment staff, repairs to a valve on a sewer force main have been delayed due to high flood waters.

A passerby reported the leak to the Council Bluffs staff about noon Saturday, but the city had to pump water down behind a levee to reach the sewer main on the south side of the city near Interstate 80. Wearing life jackets, city staffers tried to shut an air relief valve and discovered the valve was broken.

A contractor tried to make repairs or temporarily plug the leak last weekend, but was unsuccessful. The city estimates 100 to 200 gallons of wastewater per minute are discharging to the Missouri River.

The city plans to make temporary repairs Monday, but will be unable to make permanent repairs until flood waters recede.

The DNR will continue to monitor the situation and provide technical assistance as needed.

(DNR Press Release)

HAMBURG, Iowa (AP) – Flooding along the Missouri River is expected to break decades-old records this summer and test its system of levees, dams and flood walls like never before. The swollen river is already threatening the small southwest Iowa town of Hamburg.

Crews were scrambling Monday to pile massive sandbags on a faltering levee and build a secondary barrier. The fire chief says that if those efforts fail, parts of Hamburg could be under as much as 8 feet of water for a month or more.

The levee that guards an area of farmland and small towns between Omaha, Neb., and Kansas City has been partially breached in at least two places. New breaches are expected as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers releases record amounts of water from dams by mid-June.

A recently-elected Republican official in Iowa is taking a Republican presidential candidate to task for announcing he’ll skip Iowa’s Caucuses. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman said this past weekend he didn’t plan to compete here because he opposes subsidies for corn, soybeans and ethanol and understands “how the politics work” in Iowa. Matt Schultz, a Republican who was elected as Iowa’s Secretary of State last November, scoffs at Huntsman’s reasoning.

“That, to me, was like an excuse of ‘my dog ate my homework,'” Schultz says. “…This is a red-herring statement, just an excuse and that’s why I hope Jon Huntsman will change his mind. You know, the last two presidents won the Iowa Caucus.” Barack Obama won the Iowa Democratic Party’s Caucuses in 2008 enroute to winning the White House and George W. Bush was the victor of the Iowa Republican Party’s Caucuses and the presidency in 2000. As for ethanol support being a litmus test in Iowa politics, Schultz points out Iowa’s Republican Congressman Steve King represents the most-rural district in congress and King opposes ethanol subsidies, too.

“We’re not single-issue voters,” Schultz says. “We care about issues, but we want to hear what your vision is.” Schultz suggests there are other “real reasons” Huntsman is skipping Iowa, perhaps because Huntsman doesn’t want to face questions about his Mormon faith. Schultz, who is a Mormon, too, says that was “never an issue” in his race last year.

“Anybody who thinks that Iowans will discriminate against them for race, sex or religion, I think, are wrong,” Schultz says. Schultz made his comments during an interview with Radio Iowa.

(O.Kay Henderson/Radio Iowa)