(Radio Iowa) -Autumn arrives this week, but forecasters don’t expect much change in terms of the warmer, drier weather for the next month or so. Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center, says October temperatures look to stay above-normal. “Those above-normal chances of above-normal temperatures are really holding pat,” Fuchs says, “especially from Colorado through Nebraska up into the Midwestern states where that probability is 50 to 60% probability of seeing above-normal temperatures during that time, which is pretty high.”

After months of drought, Fuchs says the predictions show little change in rainfall is likely in the month ahead.”For precipitation, we’re seeing above-normal chances of below-normal precipitation in portions of the Central Plains,” Fuchs says, “but as we go further east, we start seeing equal chances to above-normal chances of above-normal precipitation during the month of October.”

Fuchs says the trends for the 90-day outlook aren’t much different. “There’s above-normal chances of above-normal temperatures and for precipitation, we’re seeing some of the area above-normal chances for above-normal precipitation,” Fuchs says, “but a lot of equal chances and above-normal chances of below-normal precipitation.”

Fall arrives Wednesday.

(Radio Iowa) -Two Democrats have announced they intend to try to unseat Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate in 2022. Both were speakers this weekend at Polk County Democrats Steak Fry. Clinton County Auditor Eric Van Lancker  is in the middle of his fourth term as commissioner of elections in Clinton County. “We need a voting advocate running elections in this state,” Van Lancker says. Van Lancker accuses Republican lawmakers of implementing what he calls “ugly stuff” to try to undermine confidence in elections.

“In fact, our state is home to some of the most cynical and short-sighted political attempts to manipulate turn out than anywhere in America right now,” he says. According to Van Lancker, some mail-in ballots will go uncounted due to an election law change Republicans passed this year. “Ending counting absentee ballots at the end of an Election Night is absolutely irresponsible when we have bar code technology that tells us when a voter returns their ballot in good faith,” Van Lancker says.

Joel Miller has been Linn County Auditor for more than 14 years. “Let’s make voting easy again,” he said. Miller criticizes Republican lawmakers for cutting the early voting period in half since 2016 and for limiting every Iowa county to having just one drop box for absentee ballots. “Folks, let’s call that for what it is: voter suppression,” Miller said. “It’s a coordinated attack on Iowans and our current secretary of state seems very comfortable standing by while our right wing legislature chips away at our voting rights.”

Miller reminded the crowd that he was sued for defying Secretary of State Paul Pate’s order not to mail out absentee ballot request forms that included the voter’s registration number and home address. “I was sued for expanding voter participation and keeping voting safe during a deadly pandemic,” Miller said. “I am proud to face that lawsuit any day of the week.” Miller lost that lawsuit. During a speech in Coralville Saturday, Pate touted Iowa’s voter I-D law and criticized the Freedom to Vote bill Senate Democrats have drafted.

“Right now they’re trying to do end runs on the Constitution. They want to steal our elections from the states,” Pate said. “They want to nationalize elections.” Pate did not mention the two Iowa Democrats who’ve announced they hope to challenge him in 2022. Pate urged his fellow Republicans to remember to vote THIS November in city and school board elections. “The school boards…we have people there trying to tell us how to run our lives in a fashion that we don’t support,” Pate said. “so this vote is important.”

Paul was among the speakers at the 2022 campaign kick-off for Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks reelection.

(Iowa City, Iowa) – A semi-tractor-tranker trailer accident in eastern Iowa Sunday afternoon, claimed the life of a man from Indiana. The Iowa State Patrol reports 65-year-old Robert Wayne Swiedals, of Clear Lake, IN., died at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, in Iowa City, after the 2020 Peterbilt he was driving ran off Intertstate 80 westbound, near mile marker 260. The accident happened at around 1:15-p.m. Officials say the semi is registered to RJ’s Transporation, LLC, out of Rosedale, LA.

The truck & tanker it was pulling entered the north ditch. Swiedals was ejected from the cab and flown from the scene to the hospital. The accident remains under investigation by the ISP. Johnson County HAZMAT, Cedar County Sheriff’s deputies, DOT MVE officers and AirCare assisted at the scene.

(Urbandale, Iowa) – A man on a bicycle died after he was struck by a vehicle at around 7:17-a.m., Sunday, in Urbandale. According to Urbandale Police, the accident happened in the 8500 block of Meredith Drive. A preliminary investigation identified the driver of the vehicle as 67-year-old Deborah Jackson, from West Des Moines. Police identified the bicyclist as 55-year-old Eric Christopher Lindberg, of Des Moines.

Authorities say Jackson was traveling  east on Meredith Drive when her vehicle struck the eastbound bicycle in the outside lane. Emergency personnel attempted life saving measures at the scene, but Lindberg died at the hospital. The accident remains under investigation.

(Radio Iowa)[ updated] – Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Ottumwa has kicked off her campaign for a second term with a fundraiser in Coralville this weekend. “We’re at a precipice in our country. Which pathway are we going to go down? Are we going to going on the pathway of Venezuela or are we going to continue to be the greatest nation on Earth?” Miller-Meeks asked.

Miller-Meeks, an eye doctor who is an Army veteran, spent much of her 12-minute speech talking about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. “I know if I had been given an order to leave Bagram Air Force Base and put my soldiers at risk, I would have resigned rather than put their lives at risk,” Miller-Meeks said, to cheers. Miller-Meeks drew even louder cheers from the crowd of 200 when she called for the resignations of top U-S generals and the U.S. secretary of state.

Miller-Meeks also criticized the Biden Administration’s recent move to fine companies with more than 100 employees who do not ensure workers have had a Covid shot or are regularly tested for the virus. “Make no mistake, I’ve given vaccine in all 24 counties. I talk to people about the vaccine. I try to persuade them for the vaccine, but I still believe there should not be a mandate and we should recognize natural immunity, which we still do not do,” she said, to applause.

Miller-Meeks currently represents 24 counties in Iowa’s second congressional district, but state legislators have yet to set district boundaries for the 2022 election. Democrat Christina Bohanan of Iowa City has announced she intends to run against Miller-Meeks and, a few hours after the Miller-Meeks campaign event, Bohanan blasted Miller-Meeks for saying elementary students don’t transmit Covid to adults or other children. “We do not need leaders who tell lies,” Bohanan says. “We do not need someone who tells lies about a deadly virus that has killed thousands of Iowans.”

Bohanan was among the speakers at the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry on Saturday afternoon.

A 13-year-old male from Afton was injured Saturday evening during a collision between an UTV (Utility Terrain Vehicle) and a pickup truck, in Union County. The Union County Sheriff’s Office reports a 2020 Kawasaki Mule UTV driven by Clayton W. Toppin, was coming out of his family’s farm field entrance, and failed to see a 2022 Ford F-250 driven by 57-year-old Dean Earl Wittstock, of Afton, traveling north on 130th Street, within the Afton City limits. The UTV hit the pickup on its passenger side.

The impact spun the pickup around on the road, causing the back of the vehicle into the east ditch. The crash happened at around 5-p.m., Saturday. Following the collision, Toppin complained of pain in his right arm, and believed it to be broken. He was flown to Blank Children’s Hospital by Mercy One Air Ambulance. Authorities say Wittstock was not injured. Damage to the UTV was estimated at $2,000.

The pickup sustained $4,000 damage. No citations were issued.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller plans to seek reelection in 2022 for an 11th term. Miller, a Democrat, made the announcement this weekend at the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry. “Right now we’re doing some of the best work we’ve ever done. We have some of the best staff we’ve ever had,” Miller says. “I’m energized and challenged and fulfilled by the office.” Miller says he’s running again to tackle unfinished business. That includes overseeing a settlement with companies that spurred the opioid crisis and pursing allegations that Facebook and Google act like monopolies.

“The goal of the office is to use the law to serve the interests of ordinary Iowans,” he says. Miller, who is 77 years old, was first elected attorney general in 1978. Miller did not seek re-electon in 1990 as he ran unsuccessfully for governor that year, then Miller regained the office of attorney general after the 1994 election. Miller did not have a Republican opponent in 2018, when he won a 10th term, and he defeated G-O-P opponents in the two previous elections by double-digits.

A spokesman for the Iowa G-O-P calls Miller the most entrenched Democrat in Iowa. A Republican candidate has yet to announce they’ll challenge Miller in 2022.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Members of the Atlantic City Council have a lot on their plate for this Wednesday evening’s meeting. One of the action items before them is a Resolution of Support for the Cass County Board of Supervisors to invest in “Public Safety and First Responders Communication Infrastructure and Equipment.” City Administrator John Lund says the Resolution does not in any way bind the Council to pay for the equipment (which would include a communications tower and/or equipment).

Late last month, the Board of Supervisors held lengthy discussion with regard to the Iowa Statewide Interoperable Communications System (ISICS), which is designed to provide public safety agencies, first responders, schools and utility workers in the state with better connectivity. Cass County Sheriff Darby McLaren told the Supervisors that public safety in and around Atlantic, and the people who serve in and around Atlantic, are unhappy with the communications that they have with the current system.

The Atlantic Police Department and Cass County Sheriff’s Office have utilized the system since late summer/early fall, 2020. And, while it has provided much clearer and more reliable coverage in rural parts of the county, thanks to the strategic placement of towers here and in adjacent counties, there is still a large “dead area” of reception in Atlantic, for the use of portable radios, because they have trouble reaching the tower a mobile radio can reach.

The Supervisors asked Sheriff McLaren, Atlantic Police Lt. Devin Hogue and others in emergency services, to approach City Officials and the municipalities of Cass County, and learn what support there is for bonding for ISICS infrastructure is a good investment. Lt. Hogue says an enhancement tower that would boost overall coverage and provide radio coverage suitable for public safety use, should be located in the City of Atlantic. Motorola has proposed using the existing AMU water tower on 22nd Street to build an enhanced communications system. The cost of a new tower is roughly $3-million dollars.

In other business, the Council will act on granting a sanitary sewer system connection to 60499 Glacier Road. The site location is too far from the City Limits to annex, just like the location the Council approved a connection for at 60365 Glacier Road, during their last meeting. The Council will also act on: appointing Heather Santi-Brown to the Housing Committee; and an Order to close selected streets on Oct. 9th for the 6-p.m. Atlantic Fireman’s Parade. The Council will recognize three City employees for their 10-years of public service: Chad Silence, with the Street Dept.; John  Lund, who started as an Assistant to the City Administrator, and Lt. Devin Hogue, who began as a patrolman with the Atlantic P-D.

And finally,  Mayor Dave Jones is expected to announce the Halloween Trick or Treating in the City will be held Sunday, Oct. 31st, from 5-until 7:30-p.m.

The Crawford County Board of Supervisors is the latest group of Iowa elected officials to run afoul of the state open records law by restricting how members of the public can ask for records. According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, the board erroneously told a citizen she had to submit an information request in writing.

Iowa’s open records law allows people to ask for information in person, or “in writing, by telephone, or by electronic means.” In recent years, some Iowa local governments and state agencies have illegally told citizens, including reporters, that they had to submit requests in writing. Sometimes, they even demanded people use an online portal.

Crawford County Democratic Party Chairwoman Beth Ann Vogt had requested a copy of the county’s public records policy after a local controversy over the ownership of a communications tower. She noticed that the county required information requests to be in writing, in conflict with state law.

Vogt filed a formal complaint with the Iowa Public Information Board. The board’s staff lawyers on Thursday recommended the panel find that the the complaint had “merit.” That would mean the parties would have to negotiate an informal resolution. But the supervisors moved to change the policy after an assistant county attorney pointed out the conflict with state law. Vogt withdrew her complaint Thursday.

The board soon will vote on a new policy the county attorney’s office is drafting, to comply with state law.