(Radio Iowa) – The statewide bicycle ride that was initially designed to compete with RAGBRAI is finding it can’t compete with COVID-19. Iowa’s Ride is being modified and this year will be Iowa’s Ride Weekender. Organizers had hoped to go from Iowa’s eastern border to the west, the opposite direction of RAGBRAI, but several overnight stops have pulled out due to the pandemic.

A post on the Iowa’s Ride Facebook page says it’ll now just be July 16th through the 18th in Eldora. There will be a designated 40 to 50-mile bike route on Saturday and several riding options on Friday and Sunday. RAGBRAI will start the following weekend and runs July 25th through the 31st, pedaling 454 miles from Le Mars to Clinton.

The Atlantic Police Department reports four arrests. On Sunday, 33-year-old Receiver Berdon, of Atlantic, was arrested for Public Intoxication, and, 28-year-old Renson Berdon, of Atlantic, was arrested for Driving While Intoxicated.

On Saturday, 19-year old Rachael Stanley, of Atlantic, was arrested on a Cass County warrant for Theft in the 3rd Degree. And, on March 25th, 18-year old Dante Watkins, of Atlantic, was arrested on Cass County warrants for two counts of Probation Violation.

All four subjects were booked into the Cass County Jail, where Watkins and the Berdon’s remained, as of Tuesday.

The Adams County Sheriff’s Office reports two people were arrested on assault charges, last week. On or about March 26th at around 3:50-p.m., Adams County Deputies were dispatched to 404 Loomis Avenue in Corning, for a civil complaint. Upon further investigation, Kimberly Bloom, of Corning, was arrested for Domestic Abuse Assault/1st offense, and Assault Causing Bodily Injury. She was transported to the Adams County Jail.

And, at around 9-p.m. Saturday, Deputies in Adams County conducted a traffic stop on a speeding vehicle. The driver, 40-year old Joshua Prine, of Minnesota, was discovered to have had a warrant for his arrest out Polk County, for Assault Causing Bodily Injury or Mental Illness. After the warrant was confirmed, Prine was transported to the Adams County Jail and held for Polk County authorities.

The driver of a garbage truck in eastern Iowa was arrested Monday on suspicion of drunken driving, after the truck struck a car and failed to stop. According to KCRG, the truck’s driver, 61-year-old Robert Truax, of Marion, was arrested after deputies pulled him over when he left the scene of the accident. Truax was charged with a second-offense operating while intoxicated, and following too closely.

The incident took place on Highway 30 in Cedar Rapids when the car that was hit, slowed down for a funeral procession.

The Adair County Board of Supervisors are set to meet 9-a.m. Wednesday, March 31st, in an electronic session. The meeting will be conducted via teleconference (see dial-in number & access code at the end of this story). During the session, the Board will hear from Chris Whitaker, Local Assistance Director with the Region 12 COG (Council of Governments). He will speak with regard to floodplain information.

Adair County Engineer Nick Kauffman will talk about a New Hire (followed by Board action on approving the hire), as well as wage rate progressions for two Secondary Roads Dept. employees. At around 9:35-a.m. Wednesday, Conservation Director Dominic Johnson was talk about the Mormon Trail shower house and have an update on Conservation Dept. Activity.

The meeting wraps up with Adair County Attorney Melissa Larson discussing a Solar Panel Ordinance. The subject of Solar Farms in Adair County has been discussed in previous meetings the past couple of months, with some rural residents voicing their concerns and objections over proposed plans by MidAmerican Energy to take more land out of production, in favor of large solar farms.

(Dial-in number: 605-313-6157,    Access Code: 526272# )

(Radio Iowa) – An eastern Iowa man will spend more than five years in federal prison for selling drugs that nearly killed a woman. Twenty-seven-year-old Michael Jerome Greenwood of Dubuque admitted in his guilty plea to distributing heroin near a playground that heroin he sold in August of 2018 caused a woman to lose consciousness. Family members of the woman took her to the hospital where she was revived with a Narcan.

Greenwood also admitted to sometimes requesting sexual favors from his customers in exchange for heroin. He was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison.

(Radio Iowa) – Former Iowa Secretary of State Elaine Baxter of Burlington has died at the age of 88. In 1973, Elaine Baxter became the first woman ever elected to the Burlington City Council in 1973. In 1982, she was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives, where she served three terms. In 1986, Baxter won a statewide race to serve as Iowa Secretary of State and served two terms as Iowa’s top election official. In 1992, Baxter ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House against Republican Congressman Jim Ross Lightfoot.

Elaine_Baxter (via Wikipedia)

After leaving elected office, Baxter served on a variety of state boards and commissions, including the Terrace Hill Society and the Iowa Lottery Board. In 2006, Baxter was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and she died Friday after a brief illness according to an online obituary.

(Radio Iowa) – A broken water meter at the home of a clerk for the City of Missouri Valley has led to a special investigation by the state auditor’s office — and advice to quit storing cash in the city’s safe for weeks at a time. State Auditor Rob Sand says auditors reviewed a 50 month period and identified about 42-thousand dollars in utility payments from Missouri Valley residents that weren’t immediately deposited until about a thousand dollars in cash had accumulated in a safe.

“That isn’t what you want to do,” Sand says. “You want to get the money in and then you want to put it in the bank as quickly as possible.” Auditors determined the 42-thousand dollars was eventually deposited. “But you just don’t want to have that money laying around, even if it’s in a safe,” Sand says. “You want to be making deposits as soon as the money comes in.”

In October of 2019, Missouri Valley’s city administrator discovered the water meter at Brenda Osborn’s home was broken and she had adjusted her monthly bill from zero to about 50 dollars for 20 consecutive months. Osborn, the city’s water billing clerk, was in charge of getting meters fixed. Osborn was placed on leave and then resigned in late 2019. Sand says once the meter at Osborn’s home was fixed, her monthly bill wound up to be about 30 bucks.

The investigation by the state auditor’s office identified about 12-hundred dollars worth of checks written to the city apparently converted to cash. However, auditors weren’t able to match any of the amounts written on the checks to bills that were due. “We’ve got a little bit of missing money here and that’s always important,” Sand says, “but the other issue is how to people get the opportunity for that money to go missing and that is not following best practices.”

Sand says that means accurate daily recording of receipts and prompt deposits of any money paid to the city. Missouri Valley’s mayor and city council asked for the investigation and the report has been forwarded to law enforcement.

A copy of the report is available for review HERE.

Auditor of State Rob Sand, Tuesday, released an agreed-upon procedures report on the City of Griswold, for the period July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2020. Sand reported ten findings related to the receipt and disbursement of taxpayer funds. The findings address issues such as a lack of segregation of duties, the Fire Department bank account held outside of the City’s control, Fire Department questionable disbursement and moneys provided to non-profit corporations in violation of Article III, Section 31 of the Constitution of Iowa. Sand provided the City with recommendations to address each of the findings.

Six of the ten findings discussed above are repeated from the prior year. Sand says the City Council has a fiduciary responsibility to provide oversight of the City’s operations and financial transactions. Oversight is typically defined as the “watchful and responsible care” a governing body exercises in its fiduciary capacity.

A copy of the agreed-upon procedures report is available here.