Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

The Atlantic City Council, Wednesday evening, passed a resolution amending the Fiscal year 2012 Budget. The move followed a public hearing on the matter, during which no comments were received or heard. As mentioned earlier during our previous report on KJAN, City Administrator Doug Harris summed up the areas where the changes were to be made. They included Public Works, Culture and Recreation, Community and Economic Development, and Enterprise, which includes Storm Water and Sanitary Sewer cost overruns and unanticipated expenses.

Councilman Shaun Shouse clarified what the amendment really boils down to. He said “We have to amend the budget to have the authorization to spend the money.” Most of the areas are items where there will be income to offset the expenses. Shouse said it is not “all new tax revenue…the money is there, but (they) didn’t anticipate having to spend the money,” during the current Fiscal Year. Therefore they have to amend the budget in order to have the spending authority.

In his report to the Council, Doug Harris said he was pleased to announce progress was being made on the S.F. Martin House on Poplar Street (a local bed and breakfast) the exterior of which has been an eye sore for many years, and other properties within the city. Harris said the City has been encouraging property owners to take care of their property, under the Minimum Maintenance Code, which the Council approved last November, and is designed to: preserve the quality of buildings in Atlantic; to help preserve property values; and to prevent the spread of “Urban blight.” It requires property owners to keep structures in reasonably good repair.

Harris said also, he’s been working with several entities, including the Southwest Iowa Planning Council (SWIPCO), the Chamber of Commerce and USDA, to try and find funds to revitalize the downtown area, especially with regard to business facades, many of which are beginning to show wear due to age. He says there may be CDBG – Community Development Block Grant – funds available for those types of improvements. Another source of funding might be available to provide housing in the upper levels of downtown businesses, that would make those buildings “more viable,” according to Harris.

A meeting will be held at Noon on June 12th at SWIPCO in Atlantic, for downtown business owners, Chamber and other City leaders or officials, to explain what funds are available, how the process works, and how it could increase public and private investments. Darren Smith, Project Manager in the City of Woodbine, will be on-hand at the meeting as well, to explain the requirements and other related matters. A couple of years ago, Woodbine was awarded a $500,000 Downtown Revitalization Community Development Block Grant as part of a $900,000 Façade Master Plan to renovate 23 buildings in the City’s Main Street District.  (For more information on that project, go to http://www.woodbineia.org/main-street-chamber)

Harris said grant applications aren’t due until January 2013, so there is time to take a close look at how to proceed with any possible plans for downtown revitalization.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest of a Red Oak man Wednesday afternoon.  At about 2:00 PM Wednesday, 55-year-old James Piunti of Red Oak was arrested on a valid warrant for probation violation out of Pottawattamie County.  Piunti was being held on $10,000 cash bond and waiting transportation to Pottawattamie County.

A report from a non-profit environmental group says extreme storms are hitting the Midwest more frequently and the flood damage they’re causing is getting worse. Stephen Saunders, president of the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, says their research covered records from more than 200 weather stations in Iowa and seven other Midwestern states from the years 1960 through 2011. The lead author of the report, Saunders says, “We found the total precipitation from all the storms in the Midwest went up at a rate of 23% over that 51-year period.” Scientists point to global climate change, he says, as the culprit behind the rising severity of storms over the five decades. During that time, there was no change in the pattern of minor storms, while they found the nastier storms appeared much more often.

Saunders says, “The frequency of storms that dumped 1-2″ of precipitation in a day went up by 34%, storms of 2-3″ went up by 81% and what we call the extreme storms, those that had 3″ or more of precipitation in a day, went up by 103%.” Incidences of the most severe downpours doubled over the last half century. “The last decade, the last dozen years, has been particularly tough,” Saunders says. “Of the first 12 years of this century, seven of the nine worst years for extreme storms in the Midwest occurred in those 12 years.” The study found the two most destructive years for flooding in our region during the five decades were 1993 and 2008, years that hold foul memories for many Iowans.

“As people who lived through those floods in the Midwest know, those were two years of the worst flooding the Midwest has had in more than 80 years,” Saunders says. “In 2008, the flooding caused $16-billion in damages and in 1993, the flooding caused $33-billion in damage in the Midwest.” He says global studies already blame human-caused climate change for driving more extreme precipitation, and if emissions keep going up, Saunders says the forecast is for even more extreme storms in the region. One of the group’s recommendations is: enacting comprehensive mandatory limits on global warming pollution to reduce emissions by at least 20-percent below current levels by 2020 and 80-percent by 2050. The report is called, “Doubled Trouble: More Midwestern Extreme Storms.” Learn more at the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization website: www.rockymountainclimate.org

(Matt Kelley/Radio Iowa)

Officials with the Trevor Frederickson Memorial Fund recently presented Acting Atlantic Police Chief Dave Erickson with ice cream reward certificates to be distributed to kids who are caught wearing their bicycle helmets during the month of June, as part of an effort to promote safe biking. 

Office Dave Erickson accepts certificates from Darrin Petty

The two organizations have teamed up with Atlantic Kiwanis Club, Nishna Valley Trails, Atlantic’s Burger King and West Side Diner to bring back the program, which was popular in the 1990’s.  The certificates include safe riding tips and a coupon for a free ice cream cone.

A meat cooking facility in Shelby County has closed its doors. Superior Meats out of California purchased Jim’s Meat Market in February 2008. Since that time, the plant went from a raw plant to a cooking plant. Owner and operator Hank Mayhue said it was because of the price of raw buffalo going from $1.70 per pound of a-trim to $5.73 per pound. The company renovated the building, purchased equipment and turned it into a cooking plant, distributing hamburgers and meatballs. The product was sold to schools, prisons and retailers. The company was shut down for months and cost millions of dollars to get the company up and running. 

Mayhue said it was their own inability to get the machine working properly that led to the company closing its doors along with the cost of testing the meat extensively. The company at their peak had close to 30 employees. They have paid their vacations and treated their employees’ right. Mayhue says he hopes someday the plant will be successful. Mayhue says they can’t say enough good things about the people of Harlan. He says they are so sad that the money is gone and lost, and they wanted to see people be successful. 

The plant was shut down last Friday, May 11^th. Kohler Company in Lincoln, NE will host an auction for everything in the plant and the 5 acres sometime in the middle of July this year. Superior Meats is hoping someone in the meat industry will purchase the building because it is ready for production right away.

(Joel McCall/KNOD – Harlan)

The Cass County Memorial Hospital’s seven member Board of Trustees this (Wednesday) morning voted to keep the Behavioral Health Unit at the hospital, even though the bids to remodel a portion of the facility for a scaled down version of the BHU came in at a greater than anticipated cost. The Board approved the remodeling project and to retain the BHU by a vote of 4-to 2, with board members Lois Casey, Jerry Putnam, Phyllis Stakey and Ned Brown voting in favor, and Leanne Pellett, John Molgaard voting against.

The plan is to move forward with the remodeling of the special care unit to house a four-bed BHU. It was just last week that the hospital board opened bids for the electrical, mechanical and general construction portions of the project. Hospital officials said while the electrical and mechanical bids came in at around projected costs, the general construction bid was higher than expected, primarily due to certain specifications pertaining to the type of glass used, and other such issues.

Two men from Omaha were arrested Tuesday morning in connection with the theft of copper from Center-Point Irrigation systems in the northwest part of Pottawattamie County. According to Sheriff Jeff Danker, the arrests followed a call early Tuesday morning from a farmer who received an alarm at around 4:40-a.m., from his two CPI units in the vicinity of 145^th and Treasure Lane (about 3-miles south of the Interstate 29/I-680 split). Danker says deputies quickly responded and found a 1994 Dodge Intrepid with Nebraska plates, but no one around the vehicle.

The deputies discovered the Center Pivots had copper stripped-off. After a search of the area revealed no suspects, the vehicle was towed. About 3-hours later, deputies located an individual walking on the railroad train tracks in the same area, at about 145^th and Desoto. Clifford Krings, 38, of Omaha, was brought to the Sheriff’s Office for questioning. A little more than 90-minutes later, 41-year old Scott Mohr, also of Omaha, the owner of the car, was located in the same area as Krings. Danker says a comparison of the mens’ footwear with impressions left in the area where the thefts occurred were similar. Both men were arrested on charges of Theft in the 2^nd Degree and Criminal Mischief in the 2^nd Degree.

Krings was being held this (Wednesday) morning in the Pott. County Jail on $5,300 bond, while Mohr was later released on a $5,000 bond. The Sheriff says the theft of copper from the Center Point irrigation system is just the latest in a string of such occurrences in the area devastated by last year’s flooding. He says there are no residences nearby, and the remote location makes it an easy target for thieves looking to steal copper wiring any chance they get. Danker said it costs about $5,000 to replace the wiring in just one of the CPI units, which is why the farmer who called them had an alarm system installed.

Two men from the western part of the country were arrested over the weekend on drug charges, in Pottawattamie County. Sheriff Jeff Danker said the driver of a 2012 Kia Optima, 40-year old Greg Lisheski, of Ventura, CA, and his passenger, 38-year old Michael Christy, of Hayden Lake, ID, were arrested following a traffic stop last Saturday morning.

Danker says Deputy Brian Miller stopped the eastbound rental car on I-80 at around 11:35-a.m., for excessive speed. Conversations the deputy held with Lisheski and Christy led Miller to suspect the men were transporting drugs. He requested permission to search their vehicle, but was denied. Miller and his K-9 partner “Francisco” then conducted a free-air search around the car, during which the dog alerted to the presence of narcotics in the trunk.

A search of the trunk resulted in the recovery of 18-pounds of packaged marijuana. Both men were taken into custody and brought to the Pott. County Jail on Possession of Marijuana with the Intent to Deliver, Prohibited Acts and Tax Stamp Violation, charges.

Lisheski and Christy posted $5,000 bond each, and were released from custody.

w/ Ric Hanson

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