The Atlantic High School, School to Work program, is extending an invitation to area employers to participate in the Trades and Local Employer Recruiting Day at Atlantic High School on April 2, 2020.  Organizers say the Trades and Local Employer Recruiting Day is an opportunity for area businesses to showcase various employment opportunities to students in grades 9-12 in the Atlantic Community School District. Businesses are encouraged to recruit students for part-time jobs, summer jobs, apprenticeships and full-time jobs.

Area employers interested in participating in the Trades and Local Employer Recruiting Day should reach out to School to Work Coordinator JoAnn Runyan at jrunyan@atlanticiaschools.org, by March 15, 2020.

Bailey Smith, Executive Director of the Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce, says “This is a great opportunity to show area youth what employment opportunities there are post high school in Atlantic. I encourage you to consider having a booth!”

A Bottled Water Advisory is in-place for the City of Adair, following a water main break that drained the City’s Water tower, and a power outage at the well field. As of late this (Wednesday) afternoon, crews had located the break and repaired the damage, but a boiled water/alternative source advisory remains until test results come back, which can take up to 24 hours. Bottled water should only be used for infants.

The City issued the advisory today (Wednesday) for the entire community, including the two rest areas along Interstate 80 and all businesses and restaurants within the City.

Authorities in Pottawattamie County say a Council Bluffs man faces Attempted Murder and Willful Injury charges following a stabbing incident that occurred Wednesday afternoon in the area of N. 20th Street and Avenue C, in Council Bluffs. Officers were called to the scene a little after 1:35-p.m.

Officials say two men were allegedly involved in an altercation inside a residence. The suspect, 34-year old John D. Zardus, allegedly used a sharp instrument to stab the victim, 39-year old Jarod K. Mowery, also of Council Bluffs, in the neck and cheek.

Zardus immediately fled the area and was apprehended several blocks away without further incident. Mowery suffered non-life threatening injuries and was transported to Jennie Edmundson Hospital for treatment.

Zardus was transported to Corrections and book in on charges mentioned.

(Radio Iowa/Correction:A previous version of this story used a $22 M figure. The guard has said that’s the total cost, $5.5 M is the state share.)

Iowa National Guard officials are asking legislators to set aside 5.5-MILLION dollars over the next three years for a new armory in central Iowa. Colonel John J. Perkins is the construction and facilities manager for the Iowa National Guard. “It would be one of our traditional armories where we have a large drill floor, classroom facilities,” he says. The facility had originally been planned for the south side of Des Moines, but Perkins and other Guard officials now hope to place it in West Des Moines.

“Very excited about this. This could be a multi-agency facility where both us and West Des Moines would use the same piece of land, share some facilities, but our side would be on ours and the West Des Moines police or fire would use their side,” Perkins says. The Guard plans to consolidate armories once this new armory is built. The adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard has indicated “a couple” could be closed, but no decisions have been made yet. In 2015, Perkins was involved in the process of closing armories in Algona, Corning and in his hometown of Centerville.

“The unique thing about that is every single one of those armories — Corning, Algona, Centerville — became an economic development activity for that community,” Perkins says. “As much as we hate to leave a community because of demographics and our ability to recruit in that community all of them have become an opportunity for that community because we leave infrastructure behind.”

The Iowa National Guard currently has 39 armories in the state — two-thirds of which are in metro areas. Iowa taxpayers would pay for 25 percent of construction costs of the new one that’s proposed in central. The federal government would cover the other 75 percent — about 66-million dollars.

No injuries were reported after an Atlantic School District bus slid into a ditch at around 9:30 this (Wednesday) morning. Atlantic School District Superintendent Steve Barber told KJAN News the bus was pulling out of a rural driveway southwest of Atlantic, when it came into contact with a snow berm and slipped into the ditch. It’s not clear how many students were on-board, but Barber said the only result of the incident was that those students were “a little late for school.”

The District was on a two-hour delay to start out the morning, because of the weather and road conditions.

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) – Police say a man killed a woman at an Iowa home about an hour after officers went there to check on a domestic dispute but left without making an arrest or removing anyone from the tense scene. Mark Russell is charged with murder in the beating death of Angela McLeod. Police say officers couldn’t determine who was the aggressor, and McLeod and her daughter didn’t ask that Russell be forced to leave. Russell and McLeod told the officers they could resolve their problems without criminal charges. Police say he used a golf club to kill her after the officers left.

Sheriff’s Deputies in Page County, Tuesday, arrested a Clarinda woman on Forgery & Theft charges. 37-year old Amanda Jean McDowell was taken into custody at the Buchanan County, MO. Jail, on two Page County warrants charging her with four counts each of Forgery, and 5th Degree Theft. McDowell was transported to the Page County Jail, where her bond amounts to $5,300, pending further court proceedings.

Amanda McDowell

(Radio Iowa) — Climate observers are renewing their warning of conditions that could lead to another round of widespread flooding this spring, especially in the Missouri River valley. Doug Kluck, the Central Region climate service director for the National Weather Service in Kansas City, says there is a lot of water locked up across the region. “It’s hard to get rid of a lot of water during this time of year,” Kluck says. “We don’t have a lot of evaporation, the plants aren’t growing. Whatever was there in October and November and December and now January isn’t going very far. The rivers keep flowing to some degree, some are frozen up. This is an accumulation time of year.”

Kluck says the updated forecasts are not optimistic as they predict a continued cold, wet winter. “The outlooks aren’t helpful from that perspective,” Kluck says. “Below normal temperatures will close things down in terms of freezing and not melting. The above-normal precipitation signatures, if that were to come true, aren’t helpful either.” Kluck says if snowfall for the remaining two months of winter is relatively average, that may also spell trouble. “Even normal precipitation this time of year through spring and early summer, normal kind of ramps up,” Kluck says. “So normal precipitation probably wouldn’t be a great thing either for most of the north-central part of the U.S. either.”

Significant flooding started in northwest Iowa in March of last year and some residents of the area still haven’t been able to return to their homes — after ten months.

The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports 28-year old Jennifer Elaine Schraft, of Malvern, and 59-year old Michael Earl Gillenwater, of Bellevue, NE., were arrested on drug and other charges Tuesday afternoon, in Malvern. Both were charged with two-counts Possession of a Controlled Substance, Drug Stamp Criminal Penalties, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Schraft’s bond was set at $7,300. Bond for Gillenwater was set at $15,300.

The Audubon School Board has set February 7th at 6-p.m. in the Audubon High School Board Room, as the date, time and place for a Public Hearing with regard to the Middle School/High School Building Project and the related $7.5-million dollar bond referendum vote set for March 3rd. District officials are asking patrons to vote in favor of the bond issue, which would fund the remodel, repair, and improvement of the middle and high school building, including HVAC, electrical, and plumbing improvements. The Board and Administration have stated the Middle and High School has important facility needs that must be addressed soon to ensure students in the Audubon Community School District continue to have access to a top-quality educational experience. (Additional information about the Bond referendum can be found here: https://www.audubon.k12.ia.us/page/3153)

PROJECT SCOPE
HVAC Upgrades: System replacements (AC throughout); Controls Upgrades, Electrical Infrastructure Upgrades
Space Improvements & Modernization: Auditorium, Classrooms & Media Center, Band & Music Rooms, Science & FCS Rooms, Kitchen & Teachers’ Lounge, Hallways & Corridors, Restrooms & Locker Rooms, Cafeteria, Industrial Tech, Weight Room, Office Suites, North Gym & Hallway
Safety & Security: Fire Protection System (sprinklers & fire alarms), Secure Entry, Egress Lighting