U-S Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced more actions aimed at making local and regional food systems stronger. The USDA’s Gary Crawford reports….

Vilsack is a former Governor from Iowa. He served as the 40th governor of the State from 1999 to 2000, and is the 32nd United States Secretary of Agriculture, serving under the Biden administration. He previously served in the role from 2009 to 2017 during the Obama administration.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig has announced that the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship will partner in 16 urban water quality projects across the state by investing nearly $2.8 million. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, utilizing the state’s Water Quality Initiative (WQI) and funding from the Conservation Infrastructure Program (CIP), will provide cost-share grants that cover up to 50 percent of the total cost of each project. The overall cost of the 16 projects is expected to be approximately $14.6 million, which includes $2.8 million from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and $11.8 million from local sources.

The Department provides financial and technical assistance to the communities and organizations implementing the urban water quality practices. To receive state funding, the urban water quality projects must include education and outreach components and involve local partners. These community-based projects raise awareness about new stormwater management methods and encourage others to adopt similar infrastructure-based practices to improve water quality. These urban conservation projects include water quality practices like bioretention cells, bioswales, native plantings, permeable pavers, rain gardens, soil quality restoration, and wetlands among many other proven practices.

Wednesday’s grant announcement coincides with Soil and Water Conservation Week, which Governor Kim Reynolds has proclaimed will be recognized from April 30 through May 7 in Iowa.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – A Polk County man has entered a plea of guilty to a Felony count of Theft in the 2nd Degree. 27-year-old El Messiah Muhammad Moor, of Des Moines, pled guilty on April 20, 2023, following an investigation by the Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau. The investigation began in September 2022 after the Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau received information indicating Moor provided false information and fabricated documents in support of six insurance loss claims and received monetary benefits to which he would have not otherwise been entitled.

The investigation determined that Moor claimed that multiple incidents of power outages resulted in damage to perishable food items, a computer and television. Moor provided false information and submitted fabricated repair receipts to two different insurance companies. The receipts were from companies that did not actually exist and to which no payments were made. Moor received $2,273.85 in benefits due to the false statements and fabricated receipts. Moor was arrested on February 10, 2023.

El Messiah Muhammad Moor. (Photo courtesy of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office)

Following his guilty plea, Moor received a five year suspended prison sentence and was placed on supervised probation for a period of two years. Moor was also ordered to pay a civil penalty of $1,025 as well as restitution which has yet to be determined.

Iowans with information about insurance fraud are encouraged to contact the Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau at 515-654-6556.

(Creston, Iowa) – A collision Wednesday morning in Creston, resulted in minor damage that amounted to a total of $6,000, but no one was hurt. According to the Creston Police Department, the accident happened at around 8:20-a.m., the intersection of N. Cherry and Howard Streets. A small, 2013 shuttle bus driven by 62-year-old Lorie Cooper Lee, of Bridgewater, was traveling south on N. Cherry Street and nearing the intersection with Howard Street. She did not have a stop sign or lights.

A 2003 Chevy Express van driven by 38-year-old Boone Daniel Hayes, of Creston, was traveling east on Howard Street and approaching a stop sign at the intersection. Hayes told Police his brakes failed, and he was unable to stop before entering the intersection and colliding broadside with the shuttle bus. Hayes said he pressed on the brake pedal, but it did not engage without being pressed repeatedly.

Both vehicles were able to be driven away from the scene. No citations were issued.

POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY, Iowa — A second first-degree murder trial that began this week in Council Bluffs, continues for a day care provider in Massena, charged with the death of a child. Alison Dorsey, of Anita, is accused of causing the death of 11-week-old Luka Hodges, in October 2019. Cass County Attorney Vanessa Strazdas had previously said the child suffered from internal bleeding resulting in brain death while in Dorsey’s care. According to court documents, Dorsey said the child was hurt outside her care. Strazdas said medical evidence shows the child’s injuries were consistent with shaken baby syndrome. Dorsey’s first trial in 2021 ended with a hung jury and mistrial, in Atlantic.

The prosecution has presented its evidence in the case and is expected to wrap-up today. The defense is expected to present its opening arguments today (Thursday). The trial began Monday, with the selection of a jury, followed by opening statements and testimony, on Tuesday.

(Radio Iowa) – Work on the campanile on the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls is moving right along. U-N-I Assistant Vice President, Hillery Oberle, says 15 bells were installed when the campanile was built in 1926, and 32 more were added in 1968. The brass bells are still in good shape, but the operating systems were showing some deterioration. “The connection pieces and things that suspend them in the campanile, the transmission system that controls the clappers, down to the plain keyboard, and then also the playing keyboard were really showing signs of age and weather,” she says.

All but a few of the bells were removed and lowered to the ground to be worked on. They decided to add a couple of bells while everything was being refurbished. “While we were doing that we knew we had the opportunity to fill in a couple of the musical gaps in the carillon,” Oberle says. ” When they cast the first bells they did not do two of the largest bells. So the C sharp and the D sharp. Those were not a part of our time or our carillon.” Seven new small bells at the other end of the music spectrum are also being added. “So for those musically inclined it means that we have a five-octave instrument that has four octaves that are fully chromatic,” Oberle says. They reworked the infrastructure and put in steel beams to carry the weight of the bells — which range from 20 pounds for the smallest bell to four-thousand pounds for the largest.

The UNI photo from 1926 on top of the 2023 version.

A bell almost to the top. (UNI photo)

Crane lifting bell up into tower. (UNI photo)

Oberle says the campanile is a key campus point for students, faculty and alumni. “You know it holds different types of memories for everybody. It might be where you took your graduation photo, we have so many stories of people who proposed at the campanile,” Oberle says. “You know a tradition is to go campaniling and kiss your sweetheart at midnight at the campanile. So a lot of great stories it’s really the center of the campus.” She says it’s where the university comes together to celebrate and sometimes come together and in sadness. They took advantage of having the bells out on the ground to recreate a picture of the U-N-I president and others lined up with the bells before they were first installed in 1926.

The two-point-two million dollar campanile renovation project is one the iconic spaces projects along with the Gallagher Blue Dorn and UNI-Dome renovation. Cranes started hoisting the bells back up to their hanging spot Wednesday. Getting the campanile operating again is part one of the project. “The second part of the project will revitalize the plaza surrounding the campanile. So new paving, new seating areas, new landscaping,” she says. “That all has taken a bit of a beating as we’ve had construction on the carillon going on etcetera.” They’ve raised one-point-five million dollars so far to fund the project.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowans may have seen on the news how Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was hit on Monday with a foot-and-a-half of snow. Ten years ago this week, Iowans were the ones who were stunned with heavy snow in the first days of May, well over a month into spring. Meteorologist Rod Donavon, at the National Weather Service, says May of 2013 was a month of surprise weather extremes for Iowa. “Ten years ago, we had a lot of accumulating snowfall, a lot of those really wet and heavy snowfalls as well,” Donavon says. “We actually had several areas that reported power outages with that, and usually this time of year, you don’t expect travel concerns either, but it just came down so wet and heavy that we actually had some slick travel conditions as well.”

Much of the state had at least six inches of snow, while Mason City had more than nine inches, Chariton reported a foot of snow, and Osage had the deepest report at 13 inches. While there was significant snowfall, Donavon says it didn’t stick around.  “It doesn’t take too long for snow this time of year to really melt and disappear,” Donavon says. “It’s really warming up. We were actually pretty cold here in the last week as well, and then now, we’re going to be warming up as well. This time of year, usually if we get some snowfall, it doesn’t last.”

May 2013 snowstorm (Pella)

May 2013 snowstorm (Indianola)

May 2013 snowstorm (Belmond, IA)

Within a week of the big snowstorm in May of 2013, many Iowans were switching on their air conditioners, as temperatures by May 14th were already soaring to 98 degrees. (Photos courtesy the NWS in Des Moines. Click to enlarge)

(Radio Iowa) – An organic waste recycling center in Muscatine is working to double its production of methane in the next year using federal grants. The facility takes in some four-thousand tons of food waste each year and uses two anaerobic digesters to generate enough methane to power 13-hundred vehicles. For now, the methane is being burned off, but facility director John Koch (Cook) wants to see the eastern Iowa city harvest that potential.

“What we’re trying to do here is, we’re trying to capture that methane, that food waste that would have been in a landfill, off-gassing that methane into the atmosphere,” Koch says. “We now are capturing that with these digesters and making renewable energy and fertilizer out of that.” Workers remove packaging from hot dogs, palettes of snack packs and drums of liquid cheese and dump it into the digesters which capture the methane. While there’s no infrastructure yet to do anything with that gas, Koch wants to change that.

“Whether that’s electricity or whether we pump it right back in the gas pipeline, natural gas pipeline or whatever we do, there’s a couple of options we have,” he says. Koch hopes federal grant money can help seize on the energy source that’s now being vented into the atmosphere and wasted.

(by Zachary Oren Smith, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – The weather plays a big factor in the timing of the tulip blooms for the annual Pella Tulip Festival. Spokesperson Billie Rhamy says conditions have been just right this year as they festival gets underway today (Thursday).”They’re beautiful actually, we have all the parks are just blooming with all the colors. It’s actually a lot of fun this year to see it all coming together,” Rhamy says. She says the plantings are staggered to ensure there’s always fresh color.

“Our city parks people do such a great job of making sure that there’s lots of different rounds of tulips. So if some are on the downhill sides, others are bursting with colors, and some are coming up. So they do such a nice job. There’s thousands of tulips,” she says. The forecast calls for good weather as the Tulip Festival opens and Rhamy says that will bring in a lot of people. “We highly encourage people to come on Thursday, if possible. And Friday, of course, Saturday gets a little busy,” Rhamy says, “so if you do choose to come on Saturday, come early, and be ready to be waiting in a few lines just because we get such a good turnout when it’s beautiful on a Saturday.” The have a special set of tulips that you can see.

“I think there’s about like 312 of that this variety, and we happen to get over half of them,” she says. “So those are in our, in our community and they’re really, really dark red that turns almost black, which is kind of a fun little difference for people around here.” The events are all back up to speed following the pandemic, including the daily parades. They includes lots of food, with Dutch letters and the baloney sandwiches.

“We even have things like we put that baloney on a stick, then that same thing except they turn it into a corndog I think they call it a Dutch corndog which is something fun for people to try,” Rhamy says. “They have burgers that also have the Bologna be on it too and you get get like a double-decker and a triple-decker. There’s all sorts of food everywhere.”

You can find the full schedule of events at www.pellatuliptime.com.

(Radio Iowa) -Legislative leaders expect the 2023 session of the Iowa General Assembly to conclude today (Thursday). Lawmakers took final votes yesterday (Wednesday) on more than a dozen bills, including a plan to let older teens work later hours and apply for state waivers for jobs 16 and 17 year olds cannot take today. Senator Adrian Dickey, a Republican from Packwood, urged senators to agree to House changes and send the bill to the governor. “I’m glad because they had some ideas that improved the bill,” Dickey says.

Senate Minority Leader Zach Wahls says the bill, while improved, still allows kids to work in questionable settings. “Senate Democrats do not oppose giving teens safe and age appropriate work experiences that allow them to learn important skills and earn money to help themselves and their families,” Wahls says, “but they must be safe.” Governor Reynolds is scheduled to sign the legislature’s property tax reduction plan this (Thursday) afternoon.

Another bill headed to the governor’s desk is designed to close loopholes so school districts can find out if an applicant has been accused of acting inappropriately with students in another district. Republican Representative Brooke Boden of Indianola says lawmakers from both parties put a lot of work into the bill over the past three years.

“This bill will hold these bad actors accountable,” Boden says, “something that I think is a priority for all of us, something that I know our schools have asked us for.” Legislators have approved nearly all of the bills that outline next year’s state budget. Representative Brian Lohse of Bondurant says during budget negotiations, Governor Kim Reynolds rejected the legislature’s plan to provide three percent pay raises to judges. “It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is,” Lohse says, “We won what we could win.” Year three of a five year plan to hire more district court judges has been put on hold, too. Lohse calls the backlog of cases in the state court system a crisis.

“We will continue to work and fight for the resources that the judicial branch needs in order to provide justice to Iowans,” Lohse says. Representative Ken Croken, a Democrat from Davenport, says the situation is frustrating.  “Everyone in this room knows what the right thing to do is,” Croken says, “and yet we don’t seem to be able to do it.” Democrats say Republicans have not set aside enough money for the state’s Area Education Agencies that provide a variety of services to Iowa schools.

Senator Jeff Taylor, a Republican from Sioux Center, says the A-E-As will get a small budget increase. “I do want to reassure everyone…that this budget is not starving anyone or anything,” Taylor said. “It’s not defunding education.” The legislature has also voted to have Iowa join 36 other states and set up a state licensing process for midwives.