Police in Red Oak report one person was arrested Wednesday night on an assault charge.   30-year-old Paul Silas Ratley, of Fayetteville, NC, was  arrested in the 1800 block of East Summit Street, on charges of Simple Domestic Assault, and 5th degree criminal mischief.

Ratley was being held without bond at the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center.

Lora Kanning, Interpretive Naturalist from the Cass County Conservation and Jim Reimer, Area 6 Representative from the Iowa Waste Exchange will be among the speakers involved in the Food Waste Reduction Workshop on October 15th, at the Council Bluffs Public Library. The workshop will focus on methods to reduce food waste and divert it from the landfill.

Attendees will also hear from Iowa Waste Reduction Center specialists as well as a panel of representatives from area organizations and businesses who will identify the challenges to food waste reduction and diversion. Panelists include representatives from GreenRU, Food Bank for the Heartland, Iowa Western Community College and the Cass County Landfill.

Registration for the one-day workshop is $10, which includes lunch. For more information and to register, visit foodwaste.iwrc.org.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press…

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa National Guard says more than 1,000 full-time employees have been furloughed because of the partial government shutdown. The Guard says most of the furloughed employees are federal technicians that are uniformed members of the Guard. About 45 are civilian federal government employees. Colonel Greg Hapgood says about 50 employees remain on duty.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa state senator has resigned after a special investigator found it likely he violated ethics rules by taking money from political entities connected to former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and then denying he’d done so. Senator Kent Sorenson told The Associated Press yesterday evening that he’s resigning.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Des Moines police say the department vigorously investigates all allegations of racial profiling. Sergeant Daniel Blom says the Des Moines Police Department investigated 20 public complaints in the past two years and none were allegations of racial profiling.

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) — A northern Iowa man whose car careened into a sinkhole has filed a lawsuit seeking money from Mitchell County. The Mason City Globe Gazette reports that Mark Evans of Osage filed the lawsuit, which claims the county should have done more to prevent his car from plunging into the hole created by flooding. Evans says he was driving about 4 a.m. on May 26th when he hit a black snow fence placed by a county worker about 20 feet from the sinkhole and drove into it.

The Atlantic City Council voted unanimously to approve making a contribution of $3,008.80 to the Cass County Agricultural & Educational Association (commonly referred to the as “Fair Board”) for the newly constructed cattle barn on the Cass County Fair Grounds.

Last August, the Board asked the Council to waive the $3,500 building permit fee for the construction of the open cattle barn. The Council came to the conclusion that the old fee schedule be adjusted for such structures, and later amended the building permit fee schedule, to reduce the per-square foot fee, and cap the total building fee for unattached, accessory structures, at $500.

Under the new fee, the Fair Board would have only had to pay the $500 fee, but it is not retroactive, and therefore does not apply to permits issued prior to Sept. 4th. The Board paid the $3,500 fee, but then stopped payment on the check while the matter was being debated and resolved among City officials.

With the Council’s approval Wednesday night, the Fair Board will write a check for $3,500, which the City will cash. The City will in-turn write a check to the Fair Board minus the $500 permit fee the Board would have been charged under the new fee structure. Councilperson Kathy Somers explained that having the City make a contribution to the Fair Board in the manner approved, is no different than the City approving tax abatements and other incentives in town. She said “So why wouldn’t we want to support our own County Fair with an improvement to their building in Atlantic?”

The main reason the Council decided to make the donation as described, was so that there would be a clear “paper trail” showing the Fair Board paid the original building permit fee as required under the old fee structure.

The Atlantic City Council voted 5-to-2 Wednesday evening, against passing a “Resolution of Objection” to the POET, LLC ethanol transfer, or trans-loading station, in the northern downtown area. Councilpersons Steve Livengood and Linda Hartkopf voted in favor of the Resolution, while Councilpersons Jimerson, Somers, Halder, Hayes and Shouse, voted against it.

The Resolution essentially objected to the location of the trans-loading station, but not the project itself. The concerns centered around the facility being located within 100-feet of the downtown fire district. The Resolution, which Livengood said would merely be for the record and “last longer” than a notation in the minutes, does not absolve the City from any legal action in the event of an explosion, a point Councilman Shawn Shouse said essentially renders the Resolution a moot point.

Shouse said he personally, thought the whole matter could have been handled better. He said POET had no legal responsibility to talk to the City Council before construction of the facility, which has since been completed, but he says “It would seem to have been prudent to do so.” Shouse said the Resolution, if approved, could be detrimental to the future of the City bringing in new business. He said people more familiar with business than himself, tell him this could be viewed as “Obstruction to business…being an unfriendly place to do business.”

Shouse said there is the potential for the City’s reputation to be harmed by passing the Resolution. Councilperson Kathy Somers said the Resolution does nothing to address and/or fix the safety concerns mentioned by the Mayor and others. Shouse agreed. He said the Resolution is “Retaliatory verbage,” against POET for not having informed the City of the company’s plans, and therefore there is no benefit to it. Some people were concerned that passing the Resolution would have caused POET to bring an ethanol plant to Atlantic, but Mayor Dave Jones said the company is not even considering the community in its future plans.

Councilman Livengood said while the Resolution has no legal teeth, it puts POET on notice that the City is “Watching them,” but Somers said it’s not the City’s job to “Watch them,” since they have the necessary permits from the Federal government.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Technology snags that kept people from successfully buying insurance in the new exchanges set up by the federal government are continuing into a second day. Some consumers have turned to insurance companies offering polices for information.

West Des Moines-based CoOportunity Health, which sells policies in Iowa and Nebraska, says it hit a daily high for website hits Tuesday with more than 500 people logging in to get quotes and about 100 people calling the company’s toll-free call center. Cliff Gold, the company’s chief operating officer, says people likely turned to insurer websites when they couldn’t access the federal government’s site.

He says he’s been telling people to wait a week or two. Consumers who want coverage starting Jan. 1 have until Dec. 15 to enroll.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A health system that operates multiple hospitals and clinics in Iowa says someone had unauthorized access to the personal records of about 1,800 patients.  UnityPoint Health said in a news release Wednesday that the unidentified individual may have viewed names, insurance account numbers, as well as Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.

Letters have been sent to affected patients about the security breach, which occurred between February and August. They will be offered a credit-monitoring service, and law enforcement is investigating the incident.

UnityPoint said the person who viewed the records was employed through a third-party and used other people’s passwords to get into the electronic medical record system. UnityPoint, previously called Iowa Health System, operates in both Iowa and Illinois.

A dog running out of  a ditch in Page County Tuesday morning caused an accident that sent one person to the hospital. Page County Sheriff Lyle Palmer reports a 1994 Ford Mustang driven by 18-year old Brandon Meyers, of Clarinda, was traveling west on 230th Street at around 8:20-a.m., when Meyers swerved to avoid a dog that came onto the road.

The car went out of control and entered the south ditch before it came to rest after hitting a tree. Meyers was transported to the Clarinda Hospital for treatment of non-incapacitating injuries. Damage to the car was estimated at $5,000. No citations were issued.

The warm and sunny conditions around Iowa are about to change. Kurt Kotenberg is a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. “We’re going to go, basically, from 80s and sunshine the past couple days, to stormy Thursday and especially Friday, to cloudy, cold and gloomy for this weekend,” Kotenberg says.

Clouds will be on the increase across the state tonight, with some areas possibly receiving rain. A better chance for rain arrives tomorrow (Thursday). “Especially from around the Des Moines metro area and locations to the north, we’ve got a 60 to 70 percent chance (of rain),” Kotenberg says. “Heading into Friday, we have a greater chance of strong to severe thunderstorms across much of Iowa. We’ll definitely be watching that closely.”

More fall-like temperatures will arrive on Saturday. “Saturday will be pretty cloudy all day, kind of a very raw November-like day…kind of drizzling all day and cold,” Kotenberg says. “Temperatures will struggle to reach the mid to upper 50s and it will be windy also.”

Winds on Saturday will be between 15 and 25 miles per hour, according to Kotenberg. Sunday’s forecast calls for a clear to partly cloudy sky and highs mainly in the 50s.

(Radio Iowa)

Harlan City Administrator Terry Cox says the City has Harlan received an anonymous donation of American flags for the downtown square flag replacement project. Cox reported the news to the City Council, on Tuesday. The Shelby County Supervisors, City of Harlan and Harlan Municipal Utilities will work on replacing flags around the square and will ask businesses to help with the upkeep of the flags.

Cox also said next Monday or Tuesday, the new Harlan Police Department building project will get started, weather permitting. The project was to start this past week, however work was held off until after the Harlan Community School District Parade which will be held on Friday.

Cox also reported the Iowa Department of Transportation has grant money available to change the street lights on Highway 44 to LED lights. He said HMU will do the work once the approval of the grant has gone through from the DOT. Cox said he is hoping the work can begin later this fall.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)