(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic School Board will meet in a Work Session, beginning at 5:30-p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 25th. Their session takes place in the High School Media Center.

Discussion items include: Social/Emotional Learning Support, and, a Transportation from Mark Weis. The Board will also discuss their upcoming meeting dates, including their next Regular session (Feb. 8th at 6:30-p.m.), and a Work Session/Public Hearing on the ISL (Instructional Support Levy) on Feb. 22nd at 5:30-p.m..

(Radio Iowa) – Most Republicans in the Iowa legislature have voted for Governor Kim Reynolds’ top 2023 priority — a bill that will provide state-funded accounts for the parents of private school students. (See the list of those who voted against the bill at the end of this story).

Reynolds plans to sign it into law later this (Tuesday) morning. Republican Representative John Wills of Spirit Lake opened yesterday’s (Monday’s) House debate by saying the bill is about freedom. “The parents and the child are the customers in this scenario. They deserve a choice on where their child goes,” Wills said. “…If the current public school isn’t working for a child and those parents want to have a choice, that’s what this bill’s all about.”

Democrats like Representative Sue Cahill of Marshalltown say the choice is up to private school administrators since nothing requires private schools to accept all students. “Private schools can select the students they want to attend and use what I consider discriminatory practices to do so,” Cahill said. After five and a half hours of debate, the bill cleared the House on a 55 to 45 vote. Senators debated in earnest for about three hours, passing the bill just before 12:30 this (Tuesday) morning on a 31-to-18 vote.

Representative Steven Holt, a Republican from Denison, says state funds will now follow a child to the school that best fits their needs. “If we are to improve education, it is past time to fund our students, not the education establishment,” Holt said. “We can support public education and public teachers, while also embracing positive change.” Representative Thomas Moore of Griswold opposes the governor’s two, less expansive “school choice” proposals and he is one of nine House Republicans who voted against this year’s proposal.

“It came down very simply to my constituents — I’m in a very conservative Republican district — and they were telling me, ‘No,'” Moore said. Three Republican Senators opposed the plan. Representative Skyler Wheeler, a Republican from Hull who backed the bill, says public school parents got frustrated during the pandemic and asked for this alternative.  “This is about students, it’s not about systems,” Wheeler said, reciting a theme from the “school choice” movement. “And tonight, in historic fashion, the state of Iowa is going to uphold and uplift every family in this state.” Representative Sharon Steckman, a Democrat from Mason City, disagreed.

“This bill will not uplift every single family,” Steckman said, “only a chosen few.” In the first year, low income parents who enroll a child in a private school could apply for nearly 76-hundred dollars in state funding to cover tuition, computers, textbooks and tutoring. In 2026, all private school parents could apply for the state money. Representative Austin Baeth, a Democrat from Des Moines, says an estimated 79 percent of the money will be spent on kids already enrolled in private schools.

“What this really is is a government handout to people who don’t need it,” Baeth said. Wills says if Iowans didn’t want school choice, they wouldn’t have expanded the Republican majorities in the legislature — and would not have reelected Governor Reynolds by a 19-point margin. “Her stance was she’s going to campaign on school choice all across the state of Iowa,” Wills says. “She never stopped talking about it.” All Democrats in the legislature voted against the bill. Senate Democratic Leader Zach Wahls says the governor’s plan is Robin Hood in reverse.

“Iowa Republicans are giving up on Iowa’s public schools,” Wahls said. “They are quitting and throwing in the towel.” Reynolds held a private ceremony in her formal office Monday to mark the start of “School Choice Week” and plans to sign her bill into law at 11 a.m. today (Tuesday).

(All Democrats and the following Republicans voted against the bill: Representatives Michael Bergen of Dorchester; Brian Best of Glidden; Jane Bloomingdale of Northwood; Chad Ingels of Randalia; Brian Lohse of Bondurant; Gary Mohr of Bettendorf; Thomas Moore of Griswold; David Sieck of Glenwood; Brent Siegrist of Council Bluffs and Senators Lynn Davis of Cherokee, Charlie McClintock of Alburnett and Tom Shipley of Nodaway.)

(Radio Iowa) Two students the “Starts Right Here” charter school in downtown Des Moines were shot and killed this (Monday) afternoon. Des Moines Police Spokesman Paul Parizek says the shooting happened just before 1 o’clock.

Sergeant Parizek says that person was going into surgery. Parizek says a vehicle that fled the scene was stopped two miles away and three suspects are in custody.

(Guthrie Center, Iowa) – Guthrie County Extension & Outreach will be offering an intake site for VITA this year. The Volunteer Tax Assistance (VITA) program offers free tax help to families and individuals with incomes of $60,000 or less, persons with disabilities, limited English speakers, and older adults.

How VITA works: Clients will meet via phone or zoom with an Intake Specialist to fill out paperwork and review information. You will then schedule a time to come in person to our office to submit all required paperwork. Your tax information will be scanned and sent to volunteer tax preparers off site who will prepare your return remotely within two weeks. You will be alerted when your tax return is complete and ready to review the results of the return. You will sign the returns and then we will electronically file your state and federal tax returns for free.

Taxpayers must bring:

• Picture ID for taxpayer & spouse’s if filing jointly
• Income tax documents for all jobs (W-2s, 1099s, 1098s etc.) for all years tax returns to be done
• Copy of last year’s federal and state tax returns
• Social security cards or Individual Taxpayer ID Numbers (ITIN) for each family member named on the return

VITA is being offered by appointment only, you can schedule an appointment by calling the office at 641-747-2276 anytime Monday-Thursday. All appointments will be held via phone/zoom or at our office at 212 State Street, Guthrie Center, IA 50115.

For more information, please visit our website at https://www.extension.iastate.edu/guthrie/. If you have any questions about the program please feel free to reach out to Krista Downing at the Guthrie County ISU Extension office at 641-747-2276.

(Radio Iowa) –  It may be the dead of winter, but Iowans are looking ahead to spring when they can do some pedal-powered two wheeling. This weekend is the Iowa Bike Expo where all things cycling will be on display and for sale through dozens of exhibitors at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. Mark Wyatt, executive director of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition, says the Saturday event has become a wintertime beacon for bike riders, a glimmer of hope for the warm weather to come.

“It’s bikes, gear, destinations and events,” Wyatt says, “so if you’re shopping for some recreational activities, this is the place that you want to be this weekend.” For Iowans who are in the market for a new bike, Wyatt says this is a great place to test ride some new options without having to worry about the weather. “We have a large demo area where you can take a bike over from one of the retailers and give it a go,” Wyatt says. “A lot of people like the recumbent trikes or the electric bikes or just trying out what that new bike feels like inside and kind of a temperature-controlled area.”

This is the 10th year for the expo in Des Moines, which Wyatt says has continued to gain momentum each year. “We’ve grown from just to kind of a hallway expo up to filling up Hy-Vee Hall A,” Wyatt says. “Usually, we see somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 people that come to this event so it’s really popular. We’ve kind of gone over the hump for winter and people are starting to look for spring and summer in planning their recreational activities.” The expo runs Saturday from 10 AM to 4:30 PM. It coincides with the route announcement party for RAGBRAI that night, also at the Iowa Events Center.

https://www.iowabikeexpo.com/

(Radio Iowa) – Backers of a bill that would require drivers to keep their hands off of their smart phones are hoping this is the year the bill becomes law. Iowa State Patrol Captain Todd Bailey says one out of five traffic deaths in the past five years can be linked to a distracted driver.

“It’s extremely scary when you consider the speed issues that we’re dealing with, the following too close and you take all those factors into consideration, we have a reduction in response time by that driver in that vehicle and any type of added distraction or divided attention that you put in that car is basically going to create a recipe for disaster,” Bailey says.

A senate subcommittee has advanced a bill that would require any smart phone use inside a vehicle to be in hands-free or voice activated mode. It’s currently illegal to text while driving in Iowa, but there’s no ban on downloading music, watching videos or playing games. Senator Mark Lofgren of Muscatine said as a runner, he’s dealt with distracted drivers for years.

“Twenty years ago it wasn’t so bad. It’s got worse all the time,” Lofgren said. “Any cyclist or pedestrian or anybody that’s know that (drivers) just aren’t paying attention, so that’s why I support the bill.”

Larry Loss of Clive told lawmakers he was criticalky injured while bicycling last May.

“A young man looking down at his phone cut me off from the bike lane, forced me to hit the curb, propelled me into a concrete barrier,” Loss said during the subcommittee hearing. “I spent 17 days in the hospital, had two surgeries, was off work for two months. By the way, the driver never stopped. I’m in support of this bill.”

According to an insurance industry lobbyists, states that ban motorists from using electronic devices while driving have experienced a 15% reduction in traffic fatalities.

(Radio Iowa) – An Arizona murder suspect is being held in a northern Iowa jail after his arrest following a brief standoff in Charles City. Police in Tucson, Arizona issued a warrant last year for
24-year-old Trevontea Tyron Howard-Brown, a suspect in a fatal shooting near the University of Arizona campus. A 23-year-old man was killed and another man critically injured in the shooting on April 22nd.

According to a news release from Tucson Police, the U.S. Marshals Service tracked the suspect to a home in Charles City and Howard-Brown briefly barricaded himself inside the house Friday morning before being taken into custody.

Howard-Brown is being held as a fugitive in the Floyd County Jail and will be transferred to Tucson to face charges of first degree murder and attempted murder. His bond has been set at $1 million.

(Radio Iowa) – What’s billed as a global anti-human trafficking symposium will be held in eastern Iowa tomorrow (Tuesday). The event is being organized by Teresa Davidson, co-founder and CEO of Chains Interrupted, an Iowa-based non-profit that fights human trafficking. Davidson says the conference will be carried live on Zoom and in-person at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids.

“The title is, Barriers Faced By Sex Trafficking Survivors,” Davidson says, “and there will be multiple people there that have experienced human trafficking, speaking about the barriers that they faced in getting out of the life of trafficking, as well as barriers that they continue to face once they’re trying to seek restoration out of the life.”

Davidson calls human trafficking an “underground crime” that’s widely underreported. “Many times people that are victimized by human trafficking don’t even realize that they’re being victimized by it because traffickers use fraudulent relationships to groom them in and keep them in,” Davidson says. “So, someone pretending to be a boyfriend, acting like the mother that someone never had, the father they longed for, the best friend, and people don’t realize that they’re being manipulated.”

Davidson is the anti-human trafficking coordinator at Mercy, the first Iowa hospital to create a hospital-based position to address human trafficking. Advocates say there are indications Iowa is an attractive state for traffickers, given the wide open spaces and the intersection of major interstates.

“It’s hard to know how many people are being victimized,” she says, “but since the inception of Mercy’s anti-human trafficking program in 2018, we’ve helped over 300 survivors.” Davidson encourages Iowans to look within their circle for people who may be vulnerable to this crime.

“My message to people would be to reach out to them, to be the people that support them, that encourage them, that provide resources for them, because the traffickers are looking for those people and they’re going to reach out first if we don’t,” Davidson says. “We have an opportunity to prevent this from happening to people in our own circle if we only just do it.” The Tuesday event is free and runs from 9 a.m. to noon. It’s being co-hosted by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. It’s open to the public but registration is encouraged.

The Zoom call will be capped at 1,000 participants.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa House subcommittee has again advanced a bill to ban what’s been called the “gay panic defense.” It would prevent defendants charged with a violent crime from claiming temporary insanity because they discovered the victim was gay, lesbian or transgender. The bill has never been considered in the Iowa Senate, but it has passed the House unanimously twice before. Representative Bobby Kaufmann of Wilton said he’s hoping persistence pays off this year. “Nothing’s changed in my mind,” said Kaufmann, chair of the three-member subcommittee. “I find the use of this defense preposterous and heinous and it does not pass the common sense test that this should be a defense.”

Keenan Crow of One Iowa, a group that advocates for lesbian, gay and transgender Iowans, addressed the House subcommittee that advanced the bill. “Thank you for bringing this forward again. I appreciate the tenacity of the House on this matter. I do think it’s important enough to merit a third vote,” Crow said. “What this bill does is it outlaws a discriminatory defense tactic that is based on excusing or minimizing the actions of a perpetrator based on the characteristics of their victim.”

Defendants in a few other states have been able to use a “panic defense” to reduce their sentences. Supporters of the bill cite the 2016 murder in Burlington. During House debate of the proposal last year, a state representative asked for a moment of silence for Kedarie Johnson, a 16-year-old who was wearing women’s clothing the night he was killed by two men.

(Greenfield, Iowa) – The Adair County Sheriff’s Office reports a Bridgewater woman was arrested January 16th in Adair, on two Adair County warrants. 57-year-old Michelle Renee Evans was taken into custody at a restaurant in Adair, on a warrant pertaining to an Order Revoking her pre-trial release that was filed on August 26, 2022, and, a warrant filed July 8, 2022, charging her with Failure to have a Pre-Sentence Investigation (PSI) interview. The warrants are connected with six counts of Animal Neglect with Serious Injury or Death, filed in Adair County on March 24, 2021. According to court records, Evans’ sentencing hearing is set for Feb. 3rd at 10-a.m. She remains in the Adair County Jail on a $20,000 cash-only bond.

Sheriff Jeff Vandewater reports also, 59-year-old Todd Lavern Lauridsen, of Ames, was arrested Jan. 15th in Stuart, following an investigation into an occupied vehicle on the side of the road at Adair/Madison Avenue, with its lights off. Lauridsen – who was in the passenger seat – told the Stuart Police officer a friend who was driving, was picked-up by another friend. Together they went to retrieve a trailer to haul the broken down Honda Accord.

A check of Lauridsen’s ID revealed his driver’s license was revoked. The officer noticed a clear plastic zip-style baggie with a torn half, laying on the driver’s seat. The baggie appeared to continue residue consistent with methamphetamine, according to the officer’s report. The officer ordered Lauridsen out of the vehicle, and a substance believed to be meth fell from the passenger seat and onto the floorboard. The substance tested positive for meth. A probable cause search of the vehicle was conducted, resulting in the discovery of a glass pipe under the passenger seat. The trunk contained a black box with another glass pipe, along with paraphernalia. Lauridsen’s wallet contained $448, $300 of which was in 100-dollar bills. Lauridsen was arrested for Possession of less than 5 grams of meth, and possession of paraphernalia. He was released from the Adair County Jail Jan. 17th, on a $10,000 cash or surety bond.

And, 41-year-old Stormy Allen, of Greenfield, was being held in the Adair County Jail after being arrested on the 15th. She served a her court-ordered sentence and was released on Jan. 19th.