MAPLETON, Iowa (AP) – A western Iowa nursing home has been fined after staff removed a disabled Navy veteran from the facility and left him in an unfurnished apartment with no food or medication.  The Des Moines Register reports  staff from Elmwood Care Centre in Onawa dropped off 65-year-old John Chedester on Nov. 1 at an apartment building in Mapleton. He was hospitalized after a neighbor and local police intervened. The nursing home says Chedester, who suffers from several ailments, was involuntarily discharged because he was unable to pay his bill.

Chedester is back at Elmwood. The federal government fined the home more than $5,700. A spokeswoman for the facility’s management company says the company does not condone how the situation was handled. A DHS spokeswoman said the department cannot discuss the case.

A former Glenwood Police Officer faces a felony charge of Carrying Weapons on School Grounds, following an accidental shooting last week. KETV in Omaha reports the Mills County Attorney’s Office charged Douglas Trent Good in connection with the incident which occurred last Friday afternoon in near the West Elementary School, in Glenwood. Good accidentally shot himself in the leg with a .9-mm handgun, while waiting in a vehicle to pick up a student.

Good has a valid permit for the gun and he’s a former police officer, but Iowa law says only on-duty law enforcement personnel, military personnel, correctional officers are authorized to carry a firearm on school property.

Good, who is listed in good condition at the Nebraska Medical Center, is expected in court Feb. 11.

No injuries were reported following a rollover accident Monday night in Montgomery County. Sheriff’s officials say a 2001 Chevy Impala driven by 18-year old Dylan Brown, of Red Oak, was traveling south on K Avenue about 4-miles northeast of Red Oak, when the car went out of control on the gravel road, just south of 150th Street. The vehicle slid into the west ditch and rolled over, coming to rest on its top, on a fence owned by Roger Pendleton. The accident happened at around 10-p.m.

Damage from the crash amounted to $3,700. Brown was cited for Failure to have Insurance.

Representatives of the propane industry warn if temperatures don’t go up and demand doesn’t go down soon, Midwest propane supplies actually may run out. Jeff LaPan (luh-PAN) is an account manager for a Minnesota company that sells propane on the wholesale market. He says last week Midwesterners used about one-point-two million gallons of propane and there’s about five million gallons left in the region.  “At that pace, we potentially could run out of propane…sometime potentially mid- to the end of February,” La Pan says. “It’s a potential.”

LaPan testified Monday afternoon before a group of lawmakers in Des Moines, many of whom are hearing horror stories from families who’re using space heaters and closing off sections of their homes to try to deal with the high price of propane, plus the shortage of supply. LaPan told legislators a combination of factors led to this year’s shortage — the shutdown of a key pipeline, below-average supplies on October 1st, higher demand for propane to dry the 2013 harvest and higher demand from homeowners due to frigid temperatures.

“Now I’ve committed to not say, ‘Perfect storm,’ but let’s just say that many events happened all at once to create the situation that we’re in. This is an anomoly,” LaPan said. “This is not our normal propane demand.” Brent Vander Leest of Sully Transport has more than 20 trucks headed to Houston, Texas, now to pick up propane and haul it back to Iowa.  “If everybody in the surrounding states do that, there’s liable to be 200 trucks in line, making it a 24-hour line,” Vander Leest says. “Our emergency hours of service exemption is due to run out in Texas, where we have to have a special exemption to pull out of there.”

Vander Leest says Iowa’s governor needs to lobby the governor of Texas to renew that exemption, which expires on Wednesday of next week. Some legislators say they’ll press to put an extra million dollars into the state program that provides grants to low income Iowans to help pay their heat and electric bills. Governor Branstad sent a letter to President Obama Monday, asking the president to ease or waive whatever federal regulations he can that might make it easier to get propane to market.

(Radio Iowa)

Republican Representative Jack Drake, from Griswold, has announced he will seek re-election to the Iowa House in district 21 which includes all of Union and Adams Counties as well as portions of Cass and Pottawattamie Counties.

Rep. Jack Drake (R), from Griswold.

In the House, Drake serves as the chairman of the Agriculture and Natural Resources budget committee and is vice chairman of the International Relations committee. Additionally, he serves on the Agriculture, Appropriations and State Government committees. In a press release, Drake said “Agriculture is the backbone of this state and we must continue to find ways to make it easier for farmers to feed the world. “We need to be sure we are not putting up obstacles for Iowa producers and that we are doing what we can to encourage the next generation of farmers.”

Jack and his wife, Shirley, will be married 60 years this summer. They have four children, 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Harlan Municipal Utilities cable customers will see a jump in their bill beginning in March. HMU says cable television subscribers will see an increase of $4 for many of their cable packages. The basic cable TV rate will increase from $16.49 to $19.99 and expanded basic cable will increase from $52.95 to $56.95.

The residential packages are also seeing an increase with the totally connected package of phone, internet and cable going to $99.42, cable and internet costing $92.45 and telephone and cable to $62.45. The rate increases are for residential customers only as commercial rates stayed the same.

The changes will go in effect on March 1st, 2014. The changes were approved at the HMU board meeting held on Thursday, January 23rd.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)

The Red Oak Police Department says a Page County man was arrested early this (Tuesday) morning. 27-year-old Cody Allen Keith Tunnell, of Shenandoah, was taken into custody after allegedly interfering with, and threatening Red Oak Police officers, as they were conducting a traffic stop in the 200 block of North Second Street.

Tunnell was found to be intoxicated with a blood alcohol blood level of .203. He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $300 cash bond.

Police in Red Oak report the arrest this (Tuesday) morning of a woman who allegedly took items from the Fareway Store in Red Oak. Pamela Kay Parker, of Red Oak, taken into custody at around 8:10-a.m. and charged with 5th degree theft, for allegedly taking items valued at less than $200. Parker was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $300 cash bond.

Sheriff’s officials in Mills County report two recent arrests. On Saturday, 53-year old Julie Ann Mendenhall, of Glenwood, was arrested at around 1:15-a.m. on a charge of OWI/1st offense. The arrest took place near the intersection of 221st Street and Highway 34. Mendenhall was being held in the Mills County Jail on $1,000 bond.

And 29-year old Natosha Myree Cralley, of Red Oak, was arrested at the Pottawattamie County Courthouse Monday morning on a warrant for Failure to Appear on charges of 3rd degree Theft and Possession of a Controlled Substance. Her bond was set at $2,000.

(9-a.m. News)

w/ Ric Hanson

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