The Iowa Department of Transportation is part of an eight-state plan to make it easier for truck drivers to find a place to park along Interstate 80. D-O-T planner, Phil Mescher says the states will share funding that came about after a South Carolina truck driver who parked at an abandoned gas station was robbed and killed.

“This really brought a lot of awareness to the trucking companies and to the government about this issue,” Mescher says. “And so the publicity got the interest of Congress a little bit, so when they passed the transportation bill…they included some provisions in there to help states create either better parking, more parking or some technologies to help truck drivers.”

The states are sharing 25 million dollars to create plans. Mescher says each state is working on a plan that suites their state that will also work with the other states. “In this proposal, what we wanted to do is to use some I-T-S, Intelligent Transportation Sytems technologies to provide truck drivers with information about the availability of truck parking at upcoming rest areas and truck stops,” Mescher explains.

He says you can see trucks parked at rest stops and off ramps along I-80 in Iowa and understand the need for the system. Mescher says one of the issues is truckers have limits on how many hours they can be on the road. “If they are getting down to where they only have an hour or two left, it becomes imperative that they try to find a parking space so that they don’t spend an inordinate amount of time driving around pushing up against that threshold trying to find a parking spot,” Mescher says.

He says it is important to have thing set up so the information from each state is easily accessible. )”I-80 is a huge transcontinental corridor — yet get a lot of trucks that are crossing the nation — and having that similarity is something I think that people like to see,” Mescher says. “All of the states do a great job with their 5-1-1 transportation systems, but they are all different, and you have to go to a different website for each one of them.”

Mescher says Iowa will put information on the available truck parking spots on their 5-1-1 system. He says they will also make it available to app developers for smartphones, and to companies who provide in-cab information systems and truck dispatchers. The plan involves technology to help monitor private and public truck stops. ” We will either have in-pavement sensors in the parking stalls themselves for some sites and other sites…we will count the trucks going in and out, so we will know what the availability is on a regular basis,” Mescher says.

The plan will be worked out and tested in the next year and is expected to be up and running by January of 2019. Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin are all implementing their own truck parking information management system that will eventually interconnect into a regional system.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:30 a.m. CST

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — A Dubuque man has pleaded not guilty to killing a woman who police say he met just hours earlier. The Telegraph Herald reports that 36-year-old Michael Piantieri entered the plea in Dubuque County District Court in Dubuque. His trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 20.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Des Moines police officer has been accused of drunken driving. Authorities say Brett Vanderpool was arrested early Friday in Ankeny after his vehicle was pulled over. He’s been placed on administrative leave. A public phone listing for him couldn’t be found Monday. Court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for Vanderpool.

BLUE GRASS, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a house fire early Christmas morning has claimed four lives in eastern Iowa. The city of Blue Grass Police Department says firetrucks were sent to the home a little after 12:30 a.m. Monday. The department says that of the four people inside when the blaze erupted, one managed to make it outside but died later at a hospital. The three others died inside. Their names haven’t been released. The fire cause is being investigated.

CHICAGO (AP) — The holiday weather in parts of New England is frightful. A blizzard warning was issued for portions of Maine and New Hampshire, with forecasters saying snow of up to 10 inches and wind gusts up to 50 mph could make travel “dangerous to impossible.” States from Montana and the Dakotas to Wisconsin expect wind chill temperatures in places at 40 below zero. Mountain areas in parts of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming have received more than 1 foot of snow since Saturday, bringing cheers from skiers.

(UPDATE: No injuries. Property Damage accident, only) — Anita Rescue, Wiota 1st responders and Medivac Ambulance were dispatched at around 3:17-p.m. today to a rollover accident off Interstate 80 eastbound at 70-mile marker. The driver of the vehicle was a woman from Omaha, Nebraska.

A state program that was launched this year to help save money for people with disabilities has already taken in many thousands of dollars in contributions. Under the program, parents and grandparents can donate tax-free to a fund until the loved one with the disability reaches age 26. State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald says the fund can then be tapped as the person and his or her caregiver grow older.

“Now, a lot of these folks who are disabled, maybe they’re getting public assistance or whatever, they’re cut off at $2,000,” Fitzgerald says. “You can’t have it or the government will grab it. This allows them to save up to $100,000.”

The program, called IAble, allows an account to be opened for as little as 25-dollars. The program is modeled after College Savings Iowa which allows a tax break for saving for college. The fund, which started in February, has already received 200-thousand dollars in contributions. Fitzgerald briefed Governor Kim Reynolds on the program during a recent budget hearing.

“This is important to a lot of the parents and grandparents,” he says. “As you get later in life, what’s going to happen to little Billy or little Mary, so this is a program to help families deal with that issue.”

Fitzgerald says Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley spearheaded enabling legislation for the program in Congress. Iowa is part of a 16-state coalition managing the contributions.
www.iable.gov

(Radio Iowa, w/Thanks to Joyce Russell, Iowa Public Radio)

State public health officials are trying to find out why eight medical marijuana manufacturers did NOT apply to be the supplier in Iowa. In late November, MedPharm Iowa got the state license to grow marijuana and manufacture cannabis oil here. Iowa Department of Public Health director Gerd Clabaugh says the law allowed two licensed manufacturers.

“Part of our application process asked for companies, organizations to file with us a notice-of-intent-to-apply, so we had an early indication about who and how many applications we might receive,” Clabaugh says. “And in that part of the process, we received nine letters.”

But of the nine, MedPharm Iowa was the only company that completed the process and applied for a license. “We certainly were disappointed with that because we know the law allows up to two and we think there is some benefit to having multiple manufacturers,” Clabaugh says. “After the process was complete, we went back and we informally asked some of the companies that submitted letters, but didn’t apply why that was.”

Clabaugh says they offered “a variety of reasons” — including sticker shock. Companies can expect to pay up to 200-thousand dollars in state fees to grow marijuana and then make cannabis oil. This spring, state officials will grant licenses to distributors. The first prescriptions for medical marijuana are to be filled in Iowa by next December 1st. Representative John Forbes, a Democrat from Urbandale, is a pharmacist. He says some estimates indicate it could cost the state as much as a million dollars to oversee the program.

“One of things we want to try to avoid doing is pricing ourselves out of the market by overburdening the companies that are going to get into this business by a bunch of fees because when we do that, they’re going to have to pass those costs back on to consumers who are going to purchase medical cannabis here in the state,” Forbes says.

Forbes and Clabaugh made their comments during an appearance on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program.

(Radio Iowa)