Jim Field speaks with James Brauer, Principal of Iowa Connections Academy, about the school.
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Jim Field speaks with James Brauer, Principal of Iowa Connections Academy, about the school.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (8.3MB)
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Burglars in Red Oak made off with some collectible baseball cards during a reported break-in that apparently took place over the course of the past week. According to Red Oak Police, a resident in the 300 block of 2nd Avenue reported to authorities someone entered her home by forcing open a back door. Once inside, they stole a portion of a baseball card collection and other possible items. An inventory was being conducted to determine what exactly was missing, therefore a dollar amount of the loss is currently not available. Officials say there was estimated $150.00 damage to the back door, though.
If you saw any unusual activity in the area between December 5th and December 12th, you’re asked to contact the Red Oak Police Department at (712) 623-6500.
The Cass County Board of Supervisors discussed at length Wednesday morning, the possibility of having a full study conducted on options available and costs, to expand facilities at the courthouse, or renovate certain areas to accommodate the urgent needs of the Cass County 9-1-1 Communications Center. The discussion, which lasted nearly an hour, began with Supervisor Mark Wedemeyer saying the Public Safety Commission met recently and has a proposal for the Board to consider, with regard to a feasibility study. The proposal calls for the study the Public Safety Commission to pay 100 percent of the study if the supervisors agree to commit to moving the 911 center to either the garage near the Cass County Sheriff’s Office or the east wing of the 3rd floor.
In recent, previous meetings of the County Supervisors, Cass County 9-1-1 Director Rob Koppert stressed the importance of making a decision on where the Comm Center should go, citing pressing timelines for the installation of “Next Generation” 9-1-1 equipment, as well as the space for that equipment and additional personnel. Koppert reiterated that point again during Wednesday’s meeting.
Mark Wedemeyer said an engineering firm which had expressed interest in the project since it was proposed last year, came to a recent meeting of the County Public Safety Commission to make an offer on conducting a study of the proposed sites on the courthouse grounds for the 911 Center. The fact that so much infrastructure is involved in any renovation of the courthouse, including computer servers, wiring, plumbing and heating, prompted Supervisor Chuck Rieken to call for a complete engineering study of the courthouse, not a “band-aid” approach to fixing problems as they pop up.
Reiken said if there’s going to be money invested in an expansion or renovation, they need to look at the long-term affect of how that will be accomplished and where the money will come from. The Board said it would not object to helping pay for the initial study, if it included more than just the 91-1 Center relocation.
The Board concluded their meeting by asking Rob Koppert to contact the company which expressed interest in conducting the feasibility study, to set up a meeting where a whole courthouse study is discussed instead of the initial, partial study for just the 911 Center’s needs.
Young, a senior at Griswold High School, has run on the Lady Tigers cross-country team since her freshman year. She qualified for three teams. An injury side-lined the stand-out runner her entire sophomore season.
In addition, Young earned Western Iowa Conference Academic All-Conference honors. Joining her as WIC academic honorees were teammates Jordyn Sindt, Larissa Backhaus, Serena Robinette, Xavier Olivo, Mason Anstey, Joe Sampson, and Dillon Bechtol.
Sheriff’s officials in Montgomery County say an Adams County man was arrested Wednesday afternoon, for violating a Protective Order. 48-year old David Adsit, of Prescott, was taken into custody in Adams County, at around 1:05-p.m. He was wanted on a valid Montgomery County warrant for the violation.
Adsit was transported by Adams County authorities to the County line, where he was turned over to a Montgomery County deputy and then transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where he was being held on $300 bond.
The (podcast) KJAN listening area forecast from Freese-Notis Meteorologist Harvey Freese, and weather data for Atlantic from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson…
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U-S Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is urging the U-S House and Senate Ag Committees to get a Farm Bill ready. Once created, Vilsack says that legislation could be attached to any agreement to avoid the fall off the “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax hikes and budget cuts which loom on January 1st. “That would provide a vehicle for the passage of a food, farm and jobs bill,” Vilsack says. “In order for that to happen, they could not be in a situation where they would ask folks to wait while they crafted and drafted whatever compromises they could reach. They need to do that work now so that when and if there’s a resolution to the fiscal cliff, the farm legislation could be attached to it without delay.”
Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, says it will take a lot of work to get a new Farm Bill ready for the upcoming growing season. “We will do everything we can to move heaven and earth,” Vilsack says. “Once Congress does its job, we will do our job in a timely way. It obviously depends on at what point in time they ultimately get their work done.” The automatic budget cuts that will come with the new year will impact practically every single U-S-D-A program, what Vilsack says would be a disaster.
“That gives me no capacity to manage,” he says. “It’s eight-and-a-half or eight-point-seven percent, whatever it is, across the board, virtually every line item. You can’t transfer. The only way you’re going to deal with it is by reductions in force and that is extraordinarily cumbersome.” Without action by Congress, a series of 500-billion dollars in tax increases and 200-billion in budget cuts will automatically take effect on or around the first day of January, a leap some analysts fear could prompt another recession.
(Radio Iowa)
The U-S Army Corps of Engineers continues to cut water releases from Gavins Point Dam into the Missouri River. Jody Farhat, chief of the Water Management Bureau for the Corps in Omaha, says releases were taken down to 14-thousand cubic feet per second (CFS) over the weekend. “Our inital plan was to hold that just for three days before stepping down to 12 but we’re getting down to the level where some of the water intakes are coming into concern,” Farhat says. “We’ll probably hold the 14-thousand for five or six days, let that decrease get down past those water intakes and see if we are able to make any further reductions after that.”
By comparison, the average flow has been around 38-thousand CFS but during last year’s record flooding, flow rates hit a record of 160-thousand CFS. The current 14-thousand is almost a trickle by comparison. Farhat says low water is causing transportation issues on the Mississippi River, but they can’t really help with that. Several governors, businesses and farm groups are asking Congress and the Corps to boost water levels on the Missouri to help keep barges moving on the Mississippi. “There is a lot of concern about the impacts of this reduction on navigation on the Mississippi River and we’re getting a lot of calls and monitoring that situation,” Farhat says. “In reality, Congress has not authorized us to operate this reservoir system for the Mississippi River, so, we intend to get down to our winter release rate and hold it there, unless something changes.”
Levels of the upstream reservoirs continue to fall. Farhat says that will be a balancing act all winter long. “Most of the reservoir storage is in the upper three, and those are currently between five and 14 feet below normal right now,” Farhat says. “We’ll be moving water between the reservoirs over the winter period and by the start of next year’s runoff season, each of those upper three reservoirs will be between 10 and 12 feet below the desired operating level at the start of a run-up year.” The Missouri River level at Yankton is now 16 feet lower than it was during the record flooding in the summer of 2011.
(Radio Iowa)