(Panora, Iowa) – The driver of an SUV was arrested following an injury accident that took place early Sunday morning, near Panora. The Guthrie County Sheriff’s Office reports a 2018 Ford Edge driven by 42-year-old Carl Dean Snowden, of Panora, was found by a unit with the Panora Fire Dept., as authorities were conducting a search for the vehicle. The SUV was located at around 12:34-a.m. near the intersection of Cyprus and Panorama Drive. A passenger in the vehicle, 51-year-old Amy Sue Snowden, of Panora, suffered a small laceration on her hand, was treated at the scene by Panora EMS, and then transported by Panora Police to the Guthrie County Hospital, for additional treatment (Stitches).

When Carl Snowden was located outside the vehicle, a Sheriff’s Deputy noticed an odor of alcohol on his breath. He was also unsteady on his feet. Snowden took one Standard Field Sobriety Test and failed. He then refused to take additional SFST’s. He did, however, agree to take a Breath Alcohol (BAC) test, which registered over the legal limit. Carl Snowden was placed under arrest and transported to the Guthrie County Jail, where he tested 0.159% on the BAC at the jail (nearly twice the legal limit of .08%).

The Sheriff’s report did not list any charges. It did mention the SUV was traveling too fast for conditions, and that the vehicle sustained $20,000 damage.

(Anita, Iowa) – Linn Street & Highway 148 in Anita were blocked for a couple of hours this (Monday) morning, due to an accident involving a train and a semi tractor trailer hauling grain. The accident happened a little after 8-a.m., according to Cass County Chief Deputy Sheriff John Westering.

The accident scene is by the Casey’s store in Anita, for reference. No injuries have been reported to the driver of the semi or the two train engineers. The train sustained disabling damage.

Cass County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Kennon noted earlier, there are no signal lights at the crossing.

Photos courtesy Mike Kennon, Cass County EMA

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with the Creston Police Department report the arrest at around 3:10-a.m. Saturday, of a woman wanted on an outside agency warrant. 43-year-old Carrie Nawacy Pendegraft, of Creston, was taken into custody at a residence in the 600 block of New York Avenue, on a Clarke County warrant for Failure to Appear, on an original Possession of a Controlled Substance, charge. Pendegraft was transported to the Clarke County Jail.

And, 42-year-old Thomas Lee Zelosko, of Creston, was arrested the Greater Regional Medical Center in Creston, Sunday night. Zelosko was wanted on a Clay County, Missouri warrant for Failure to Appear. He was being held in the Union County Jail while awaiting transport to Missouri.

(Council Bluffs, Iowa) – The Iowa State Patrol is joining forces with Metro Area Organizations to Take a Stand Against Speeding, for “Speeding Awareness Week.” Trooper Ryan DeVault says the Iowa and Nebraska departments of Transportation, the City of Omaha and more than 20 agencies and organizations are asking motorists to watch their speed by joining their voices together in a public education campaign to emphasize that following posted speed limits is critical to driver, passenger, pedestrian and cyclist safety. Beginning today (January 24), you’ll be seeing messages related to “Speeding Awareness Week” on social media, digital ads, and dynamic message signs around the metro and both states.

As traffic volumes have rebounded from an initial decline during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, speeding has remained a serious issue. These two factors, speeding and high volumes, have resulted in a staggering number of speeding tickets in the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area. And while areas across the country are dealing with excessive speeding issues, Omaha and Council Bluffs metro area agencies are hoping to combat the problem via an educational campaign before traffic volumes increase even more during the spring and summer months.

Austin Yates, an engineer with the Iowa DOT, says “Metro area law enforcement agencies and first responders have noticed that speeding has increasingly become a factor in crashes, both in minor incidents and more serious crashes. This is an issue that can’t be ignored. Any speeding puts more lives at risk, which is why we partnered up to declare this week Speeding Awareness Week.” Speed impacts those outside of vehicles, too. Changes in speed can have real-life consequences for pedestrians. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, if a person is hit by a vehicle going 20 miles per hour (mph), there is a 10 percent chance of fatality. The chance of fatality increases to 40 percent if a vehicle if going 30 mph and then increases to an 80 percent chance of fatality if the vehicle’s speed is at 40 mph.

Speeding, both “casual” and excessive, results in serious losses of time, money but – most importantly – human life. That’s why, as part of Speeding Awareness Week, every partner agency encourages drivers to slow down and follow the posted speed limit on roads. Information about the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area’s Speeding Awareness Week can be found at: slowdownmetro.com.

The latest area (Broadcast) News from Ric Hanson.

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(Atlantic, Iowa) – A public hearing on an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022 Cass County Budget will take place during Tuesday’s meeting of the Cass County Board of Supervisors. Following the hearing, the Board will vote on adopting resolutions for the FY 22 Budget Amendment and Appropriations. The hearing begins at 9-a.m. in the Supervisor’s Board Room at the Cass County Courthouse.

In other business, the Supervisors will hear from Cass County Engineer Trent Wolken, and act on approving the plans for a bridge rehabilitation project (L-289-73-15) with the City of Atlantic. They’ll also act on approving the end of a probationary employment status and set the pay rate for the remainder of FY22, for an Auditor’s Assistant who was hired in Oct., 2021.

The Board will discuss and possibly consider action on a Cass County Rebate Program for new, non-residential construction in rural Cass County. They will also hear a report from County Sanitarian Jotham Arber (Guthrie County Health Dept.), discuss the FY2023 Budget, and hear an update on environmental health. If candidates are available, the Board will act on appointing members to serve on: the Condemnation in Eminent Domain Committee; Cass County Zoning Commission; A Brighton Township Trustee, and a Pleasant Township Clerk.

As time allows, the Supervisors will take into consideration and possibly act on budget matters/requests.

(Radio Iowa) – A new study shows Iowa has one of the nation’s lowest drug overdose death rates, despite a significant rise in the state’s numbers. Ben Miller, president of Well Being Trust, says nearly 92-thousand Americans died from overdoses in 2020, an astounding 31-percent increase over the 2019 rate and the largest year-over-year increase on record. Miller says Iowa’s figures were far lower than other states, but also saw a dramatic boost. “What we saw was a 25% increase in the number of Iowans who died by drug overdose,” Miller says. “It’s about 432 people, and while that may not seem like a lot of folks, it’s a tremendous number of people when you consider that it’s almost a six-fold increase over the last decade.”

While Iowa’s death rates were among the country’s lowest, Miller says the figures are still menacing. “If you consider the national average is about 28.3 deaths per 100,000, Iowa came in during 2020 at 14.3, so that’s very good news,” Miller says. “The problem is, the trends continue to go in the wrong direction. While you’re lower than other states, we continue to see more lives lost each year to a preventable cause.” Iowa is doing several things right, Miller says, like increasing access to naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal or “rescue” drug. “You currently have a legislature that is looking at bipartisan ways to increase access,” Miller says. “While a lot of their conversations have been around increasing psychiatric beds, it’s a good start to have your legislature at least recognize that this is, indeed, an issue.”

There are also fewer prescription opioids being prescribed, he says, and Iowa has a prescription monitoring program. Miller says overdose death rates have been rising nationwide since 1999 and he fears the era of COVID-19 is going to be the worst yet. “What the pandemic has done, it’s been like gasoline on an open flame. It’s made things that we knew were a problem much worse,” Miller says. “In preliminary data that we’ve seen from the CDC for 2021, we are watching an exponential increase in the number of people that we’ve lost to drug overdose in the country.” The study was conducted by Well Being Trust and Trust for America’s Health.

Link to full report:
https://wellbeingtrust.org/news/u-s-drug-overdose-deaths-increased-by-31-percent-in-2020-up-56-percent-for-synthetic-opioids/

(Radio Iowa) – The Sioux City school board will consider at their meeting today (Monday) revising a policy to allow the superintendent to enact a temporary mask mandate for an individual school building. Superintendent Paul Gausman says it would update the policy that’s used for other emergencies to allow him to respond to increases in COVID cases. “That policy has been in place for years and years and years to deal with inclement weather and other things. Obviously, at the time the policy was originally crafted facemasks weren’t something that would even be considered — but they are today. Gausman says the pandemic has hit some school buildings harder than others. “There was one building last week that we were watching really closely. No because of student numbers — but because of staff numbers….we have to have enough staff in there to serve those students,” Gausman says.

Gausman says the policy will be flexible based on the changing conditions.”We are talking about a time-limited mask mandate for a specific building as an example. So, the school board would give me the authority to say that the numbers have climbed to a certain level in this building, I’m going to put a mask mandate in place for a week,” Gausman says. “Those numbers come back down again we’ll move on afterward without that mask mandate still in place. Or if they just don’t move at all, then we will extend it for another week. And so that’s how this will feel.”

He says they hope to keep the buildings open that aren’t being badly affected by COVID while dealing with those that are. Gausman says they will ask for parents to help by sending students to school with a good mask. The school board will consider the measure tonight (Monday)

(Radio Iowa) – Key lawmakers say the Republican-led legislature is focused on cutting personal income taxes and the corporate income tax cut Governor Kim Reynolds has proposed isn’t part of their plans at this point. Republican Senator Dan Dawson of Council Bluffs is chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. “One thing that my members tell me time and time again and we are trying to craft a bill in that way is that there will be no corporate rate reduction without corporate credit as well as sales tax exemption modifications,” Dawson says.

“There’s just no interest in touching the corporate rate without touching exemptions and credits,” he says. Some of the current credits are so lucrative some corporations get a tax refund check from the state. House Speaker Pat Grassley says corporate tax credits and sales tax exemptions have to be reduced or eliminated if the corporate income tax rate is to be reduced. “If we’re going to go down the path of making changes to the corporate tax rate, that should be part of the conversation,” Grassley says.

Senator Dawson says the governor’s other tax proposal, to have just one rate of four percent for personal income taxes, is the focus. “From a Senate Republican standpoint, the goals that she laid out in her bill aren’t so different from our goals as well,” Dawson says. “The first step to getting to a zero income tax is to get to a flat tax.” The governor’s proposal retains current credits and deductions for individuals and couples filing personal income taxes.

Reynolds is calling for a study about which tax breaks to get rid of and which ones to keep. Dawson says of some credits could also be called tax shelters for upper income Iowans. “If someone wants to donate money to build a new building in downtown Des Moines and they want their name on the building, then taxpayers shouldn’t have to incentivize that,” Dawson says.

Dawson says Republicans do not intend to do away with the standard deduction, credits for the parents of minor children or the minimum income threshold for filing, all of which ensure the poorest Iowans don’t pay income taxes.

(Radio Iowa) – Senator Joni Ernst says now is the time for the U.S. to impose sanctions on Russia, to try to prevent an invasion of Ukraine. Ernst is a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and, during an appearance on CNN Sunday morning, she discussed the situation in Ukraine. Ernst said without sanctions now, President Biden is appeasing Russian President Vladmir Putin as 100-thousand Russian troops sit at Ukraine’s border.

The Biden Administration just sent 90 tons of military supplies to Ukraine, part of 650 MILLION in defense equipment and supplies the U.S. has provided the country in the past year. Ernst said the U.S. should provide even more resources to bolster Ukraine’s military. C-N-N host Dana Bash asked if that includes sending U.S. troops to Ukraine.

Ernst said stable democracies in Europe and around the globe make the U.S. safer, but Ernst did not say whether she believes American soldiers should be sent to defend Ukraine.