(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic City Council, Wednesday, passed a Resolution that creates the position of Parks and Recreation Coordinator, including the job description and compensation for 2024, The Parks Director’s position will be divided between Public Works Director Kirk Knudsen and the new Parks Coordinator position, with the stipulation the Coordinator reports directly to the Public Works Director.

During the Public Forum portion of the meeting, Atlantic resident Frank Saddlemire, who was instrumental in establishing the highly successful Disc Golf course at Sunnyside Park, and has been involved with activities at the park since 2007, said he was opposed to eliminating the Parks Director’s position, as recommended by the City’s Personnel and Finance Committee earlier this month.

He said he doesn’t see where all the ideas for building the parks system in town will come from, if there’s no parks director to drive the ideas and focus on building the parks and rec system, not delegating it to seeing it through. Councilperson Linda Hartkopf was also opposed to the elimination of the position and dissolution of the Parks Board.

The Parks and Rec Board is the only such entity among the nine boards serving the City of Atlantic, that is elected. Councilman Pat McCurdy suggested an Advisory Board be established, but there is no need for an elected board, which the Parks Board is. Councilman H. Lee Sisco said those he’s spoken with are in favor of getting a new Parks Director, and not eliminating the position and Board. He also spoke with Public Works Director Kirk Knudsen, who said adding the position to his current duties would not overload those duties.

Councilman Dana Halder said an Advisory Board would likely come up with more ideas to improve the parks system, than just having a parks director. Councilperson Hartkopf responded.

The Council set their meeting on August 2nd as the date for a Public Hearing to discontinue to Parks and Recreation Board.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A man from Nebraska was arrested late Wednesday evening in Montgomery County. Red Oak Police say 66-year-old Kyle Mark Smith, of North Platte, NE, was arrested at around 9:15-p.m., for OWI/2nd offense. Smith was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $2,000 bond.

(Newton, Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Corrections reports inmate Jermichael Jim Wells, currently assigned to the Correctional Release Center in Newton, has absconded from his worksite in Victor, IA and has been placed on escape status. Wells’ sentence is for the following crimes: Theft 2nd Degree, Burglary 2nd Degree, Burglary 3rd Degree-Motor Vehicle, Dominion/Control of Firearm/Offensive Weapon by Felon, and Forgery.

Wells was last seen at his assigned workplace, Quantum Plastics, in Victor, IA (Iowa County) at approximately 5:00 p.m. Wednesday (July 19, 2023). 

Wells is a 25-year-old black male, height 5’11”, and weighs 157 pounds. He has tattoos on his back, chest, and right shoulder, as well as “Keashia” on the left arm,  “Polo” on his chest, “Keasai” on his face and “Loyalty” on his neck.  He was placed in the Correctional Release Center on September 9, 2022.

Jermichael Jim Wells

Law enforcement agencies across the state have been notified through Department of Public Safety and are working to locate and apprehend Wells.  Department of Corrections Fugitive Teams are also working to locate and apprehend Wells.

Persons with information on Wells’ whereabouts should contact local police. If citizens believe they have encountered the escapee, they should not try to apprehend him. They should leave the area and call police immediately.

(Radio Iowa) – Next week’s RAGBRAI — the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa — will be the 26th outing for the Dream Team organization. This year’s group of central Iowa teenagers, referred to the program by a school counselor, started doing indoor spin classes the first week of March. They moved to bicycling outdoors in April. This is the third year Scott Matter has been one of the Dream Team’s adult mentors.

“We had many rides in April when it was very cold and windy — those are very challenging,” Matter said, with a laugh. “…For our youth and our mentors, you really have to dedicated to doing this and to accomplishing your goal.” The 35 teens on this year’s Dream Team will ride every mile of RAGBRAI alongside their 30 or so mentors. Matter has had a front row seat, so to speak, to watch the grit of these kids — and their five month transformation.

“A lot of the youth that come to us maybe haven’t been dealt the best situation in life. For several of them, this might be the first time they’ve had a parental figure that’s actually helped them set a goal and accomplish a big thing in life,” Matter said. “Some of our youth go from not knowing how to ride a bike to being some of the safest cyclists on RAGBRAI. It is a pretty amazing thing.” The age range for Dream Team members is between the ages of 12 and 18. Teenagers who complete the ride can return the next year for the training and for RAGBRAI — until they reach adulthood.

“The return rate from our youth is about 85%, which I think is one of the best endorsements of our program,” Matter says. About 700 teenagers have been Dream Team members over the past quarter century and a few of the mentors have been around for most of that 25 year run. Bike World in Des Moines provides brand new bikes for the teenagers. “And then every member gets to keep their bike after they complete RAGBRAI at the end of July,” Matter says. Meals and lodging for the teenagers on the Dream Team will be provided at no cost during RAGBRAI, as a group of five to 10 adults work as support staff for the bicyclists during RAGBRAI’s seven day run.

Matter gets emotional talking about some of the accomplishments of kids who’ve completed the program. “It’s an incredible organization that allows our kids, our youth to dream big, to be successful and develop kind of a roadmap for setting and accomplishing big goals in their life,” Matter says. Matter cites the experience of one young man who Matter thought might drop out of the program three years ago, but has just graduated from high school and is going to Iowa State University this fall to major in chemistry.

(Radio Iowa) – The panel of lawmakers that reviews state regulations is asking questions about the problems Marion County faces due to a large sinkhole and the committee may propose new rules for mineral mines. The sinkhole opened up in mid-April, south of Knoxville, partly in the ditch of a county road. In May, officials determined the cause. An abandoned part of a limestone mine 200 feet below ground had collapsed. Kelly Meyers, a lobbyist for Marion County, testified at a recent meeting of the legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee.

“We have this huge sinkhole and the county road is closed because it’s adjacent to the sinkhole,” Meyers says, “and it’s basically not getting addressed sufficiently or quickly enough.” The operator of the limestone quarry has accepted responsibility, but Meyers says there are no state standards for how it should be fixed. “What we would like to see is you all having that regulatory authority to make sure that whatever reclamation is done — and I would expect it would be done at the expense of the quarry — that it be done appropriately,” Meyers says.

Senator Mike Klimish of Spillville says the state’s Mines and Minerals Bureau has no oversight. “Ultimately, if they backed up and started just pouring dirt into the sink hole, you’d have no way to stop them from doing that,” Klimesh said, “to fix the sink hole.” Klimesh and other legislators may sponsor a bill to establish sinkhole remediation standards AND address deficiencies in the underground mapping of mineral mines in Iowa.

It took weeks to confirm what caused the sinkhole because maps of the mine weren’t readily available. Vince Sitzmann is chief of the State of Iowa’s Mines and Minerals Bureau. “Right away when this happened, had we had that map in hand, we could have gone and said: ‘Yeah, you absolutely have mined this area,’ because the quarry themselves didn’t think they’d mined that area and the map indicated that yes, they did mine it,” he said. “Now, should the quarry have had that map? Absolutely, but it just wasn’t available. They’ve gone under some new ownership.”

Sitzmann says the Iowa Geological Survey is responsible for collecting maps for underground mining. “They had previously been part of the Department of Natural Resources,” Sitzmann says. “That was in 2014 and they moved over the University of Iowa and I think they were understanding the mine maps were no longer under their purview and were part of the DNR, which turns out was not the case, and so there was a little bit of misunderstanding and, I think, misfortune on this particular site.”

Senator Nate Boulton of Des Moines says this is a stunning case and, luckily, no one was injured or killed.  “But you can clearly see where a tragedy could happen and we really have to get serious about this,” Boulton said. The state Mines and Minerals Bureau got the initial call in April about the sinkhole, did some drilling in the area and quickly concluded the sinkhole was not connected to a coal mine.

“Essentially, that kind of ends our responsibility there,” Sitzmann said. “We paid for the borings, but we do not have the authority to go in there and reclaim a subsidence like that unless it’s coal related.” When an underground mine can no longer support the material above it and collapses, it’s called a subsidence. There is FEDERAL money available for remediation of sinkholes connected to collapsed coal mines, but NOT when an underground limestone mine is involved.