A bit of drama at the statehouse this afternoon (Thursday) as a bill that would raise the state’s gas tax by a dime a gallon cleared a key House committee on a 13-to-12 vote. To ensure passage, Republican House Speaker Kraig Paulsen used his authority to permanently replace one of the committee’s Republican members who opposed the bill with another Republican who voted yes. “I’m not going to ask somebody to go flip their vote,” Paulsen told reporters before the meeting. And Paulsen temporarily replaced a freshman Republican legislator who was a “no” on the bill and Paulsen himself voted “yes” in his place.

“I’m not going to ask somebody to do something I’m not willing to do,” Paulsen said. Paulsen says he made those extraordinary moves because it’s clear a bipartisan consensus has emerged among legislators and the bill can pass both the House and Senate with both Republican and Democratic votes. Drew Klein is the Iowa director of Americans for Prosperity, a group that opposes the gas tax increase and he was at the statehouse to watch today’s (Thursday’s) vote in the House Ways and Means Committee.

“I don’t think that the taxpayers of Iowa expected to see these types of maneuvers out of House Republican leadership specifically to support and advance a tax increase that’s going to hit low and middle income families the hardest,” Klein says. The bill will be eligible for debate in the Iowa House on Tuesday. An identical bill cleared the Ways and Means Commtitee in the Iowa SENATE around noon today (Thursday) on an eight-to-six vote. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal says he has “no particular timeline” for a vote in the state senate on the issue, but he says when it’s clear the bill will pass “it doesn’t make sense to wait.”

(Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Senate panel has approved a bill that would ban people in Iowa from holding a cellphone and talking while driving. A transportation subcommittee discussed the bill Thursday. It now moves to a full committee for consideration. Current law prohibits people in Iowa from reading, writing and sending messages on an electronic device while driving, though an officer must be stopping a person for a different offense in order to enforce it. This bill would ban a person from holding a cellphone and talking while driving.

The bill would also remove the circumstances for stopping a person. The bill exempts a person using a GPS or a device in a hands-free or voice-activated mode. The Department of Public Safety is sponsoring the bill, and it has Gov. Terry Branstad’s support.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A House panel has approved a bill that would help Iowa abuse victims keep their home address confidential. Members of a public safety subcommittee approved the bill Thursday. It now moves to a full committee for consideration. The bill would allow a victim of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, stalking and other scenarios to enroll in a program through the secretary of state’s office that would allow mail for a victim to be forwarded to a designated address.

Supporters say the bill would protect victims from offenders using public records. Subcommittee members expressed concern about the program’s $100 fee to individuals in Iowa who are convicted of charges including domestic abuse. Rep. Dean Fisher, a Garwin Republican and a bill co-sponsor, says he’s open to changes in the legislation.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A House panel has approved a bill that would add fine arts to Iowa’s mandated education curriculum for K-12 students. An education subcommittee approved the bill Thursday. It now advances to a full committee for review. The bill would add music, theater, visual art and other fine arts to the Iowa Core, the state’s academic standards. The Iowa Core currently includes English, mathematics, science and social studies.

Emily Piper, of the Iowa Association of School Boards, says it’s better for school districts to infuse fine arts education into the current curriculum without a state mandate. Rep. Greg Forristall, a Republican from Macedonia and co-sponsor of the bill, says the addition would help prioritize fine arts education.

Similar legislation was introduced last session but it did not advance.

The Museum of Danish America has recently welcomed two new Danish interns, thanks to grant support from the Scan | Design Foundation by Inger & Jens Bruun.

23-year old Charlotte Kimig is the newest Collections Intern at the Museum of Danish America. In Denmark, she lives in an apartment just outside of Copenhagen, but grew up in small suburb called Frederikssund. She just finished her Bachelor’s degree in History from Copenhagen University, and has, until my internship, been working and trying to save up some money.

CHARLOTTE KEIMIG

Back home, she has a part-time job at an auction house, where she helps customers get their antiques evaluated. Charlotte says she is specifically fascinated by the Danish Modern furniture.  Her plan is to start this summer on her Master’s degree in History. With her internship at the museum, she’s hoping to learn more about the psychology behind the Danish emigration to America and the whole concept of pursuing the American Dream. She will be completing her internship on June 30.

27-year old Johannes Svend Brask Kristoffersen is the newest Exhibits and Development Intern from Copenhagen, Denmark. He’s a graduate student in History at the University of Copenhagen. He’s also minoring in Near Eastern Archeology and Southeast Asian studies.  Prior to coming to the museum, he worked at the Danish Museum of Technology as part of the national museum educational program.   Johannes has also been working for the Danish Cancer Society in the Prevention and Awareness Department, where assisted the secretariat and the accounting staff in different tasks.

JOHANNES SVEND BRASK KRISTOFFERSEN

During his internship at the Museum of Danish America, Kristoffersen will be working on the Skål! Scandinavian Spirits exhibition and other smaller exhibitions while also assisting in the planning and execution of different events. His internship will end at the end of July.

The Cass County Sheriff’s Office today (Thursday), released information about an accident that happened last Friday evening (Feb. 13th).  According to the report, a two-vehicle accident on I-80 eastbound at the 51 mile marker, as a 2006 Kenworth driven by 48-year old James Allen Thimmesch,  of Aurora, IA, was eastbound on I-80.The semi was passed by a 2007 Ford F150 pickup owned and driven by 63-year old Douglas Duane Wager, of Shelby,which suddenly slowed when it got into the lane in front of Thimmesch’s vehicle, causing Thimmesch to strike the rear of Wager’s vehicle. No accident injuries were reported, although Wager was subsequently transported by Medivac to the Cass County Memorial Hospital for a potential medical condition. Damage to the vehicles amounted to $3,000 altogether.
(12-p.m. News)

The Audubon County Community Foundation reminds students in the Exira/EHK school District, that the deadline for submitting applications for the Exira Lions Club/Harold and Beverly Ann Godwin Endowed Scholarship is March 31st. The Fund will award one scholarship for $1,000 and is open to any high school senior from the Exira-EHK School District pursuing a two or four year degree, full-time, at any accredited vocational/technical, educational institution, a college or university.

Applicants are asked to complete the application form and submit it with a copy of their current transcripts to their high school guidance counselor, as directed in the scholarship’s fact sheet. Scholarship applications are available from the guidance counselor.

Officials with the Cass County Community Foundation are reminding students that the deadline for submitting applications for the Dustin McCurdy Endowed Scholarship Fund, is March 31st. The McCurdy Scholarship provides two scholarships of approximately $500 each to high school seniors from Cumberland Anita Massena High School (C-A-M).

Applicants are asked to complete the application form and submit it with a copy of their current transcripts to their guidance counselor as directed in the scholarship’s fact sheet. Applications are available from their high school guidance counselor.

A subcommittee in the Iowa Senate has endorsed a bill that would force the two state Mental Health Institutes targeted for closure to admit patients through the end of June, but staff at the facilities in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant have been told layoff notices are coming soon. Senator Rob Hogg, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, says the staff at the Mental Health Institute in Mount Pleasant told him they’ve already turned away more than three-hundred patients.

“We appropriated the money. We expected these facilities to operate for the year,” Hogg says. “And for them to be unilaterally closed is unacceptable.” Senator Mark Segebar, a Republican from Vail, says while officials have been trying to “redesign” the state’s mental health service delivery system for several years, this is not the time to “make this jump” because the beds at the two state-run Mental Health Institutes are still needed for patients.

“Sometimes they just take ’em to the ERs and leave them there for three days until they can find a bed in their own hospital,” Segebart says. “That’s terrible. It’s really a crisis.” Danny Homan is the president of AFSCME Council 61, the union which represents many of the workers at the two facilities. He says staff at the Clarinda Mental Health Institute were told on Tuesday that patients with acute mental illness will no longer be accepted there after April 1st and the last day for staff there will be on or before May 18th. According to Homan, staff at the Mount Pleasant M-H-I were told Tuesday that the first round of layoff notices would go out this Monday, February 23rd and May 31st is the target date for complete closure of the facility.

“The legislators are on the right side of this issue,” Homan says. “The governor of this state is on the wrong side of this issue.” Governor Branstad says it’s been difficult to recruit psychiatrists to work in Clarinda and Mount Pleasant and he says the two facilities are antiquated and ill-suited to modern treatment. Senator Hogg says that wasn’t his impression when he toured the M-H-I in Mount Pleasant two weeks ago. “It was built in the late ’50s and early ’60s. It’s in as good a condition as the high schools in Cedar Rapids,” Hogg says. “…Second, the staff there is working hard and most importantly the patients who we had a chance to visit with talked about how treatment they might have received in prison had failed. Treatment they may have received in the community they liked, but it wasn’t enough. They were really benefitting from being there.”

The bill that cleared a senate subcommittee early this morning (Thursday) calls on the governor to keep the institutes operating through June 30th, since the budget approved by the legislature last year allocated that money. Homan says it’s clear community services for mentally ill patients can’t handle the number of patients who would have been served at the state-run hospitals. “And the governor should sign this bill and he should stop the movement to close these facilities until the infrastructure’s in place to do what we need to do,” Homan says. “And we’re not there.”

According to Homan, staff at the Clarinda M-H-I are contacting nursing homes and trying to transfer geriatric patients who’re being treated at Clarinda for a mental illness. Homan says that’s “outrageous” since four of those geriatric patients are violent sexual predators who did time in prison for sex crimes.

(Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The condition of an Iowa wrestler who collapsed at the state high school duals tournament has improved. Spokesman Gregg Lagan for Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines said Thursday morning that Tayler Pettit’s condition has been upgraded to serious from critical. Lagan says he can’t provide other medical information on the teenager. The Creston/Orient-Macksburg wrestler doubled over during the tournament Wednesday.

Pettit began to seize and quit breathing. An on-call doctor used an automated external defibrillator and shocked Pettit twice before moving him from the mat.