(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Secretary of State’s office has released a video explaining the roll of poll watchers on Election Day. A narrator lists all the requirements and limitations during the nearly five-minute long video.  “A poll watcher is a person who has official permission to be at the polling place on Election Day or in the room where absentee ballots are counted before the polls close.”

The move comes as both political parties have increased recruitment of people to observe Election Day voting. Candidates or people who hold political office cannot be poll watchers. Poll watchers must provide written permission to a precinct’s election workers that they’ve been appointed by a Democrat, Republican or Libertarian Party official or by a political organization that does not have major party status in Iowa, like the Green Party.

Candidates nominated by petition may also appoint poll watchers. State officials say poll watchers are to observe, but not interfere with the election process. Poll watchers who interrupt or try to influence a voter who’s casting a ballot can be arrested and charged with third degree election misconduct.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – More than 200 people participated in the Atlantic Park & Rec Department’s “Zombie Run,” Saturday night at the Schildberg Campground and Recreation Area. Parks and Rec Coordinator Jeff Christensen says members of the Royal Neighbors Chapter 1373 were on-hand for the event with drinks, fruit and candy, part of which was supplied from the Atlantic Fareway Store.

Proceeds from the event benefited the Atlantic Park and Rec Department and Atlantic Animal Shelter. (Photos courtesy Jeff Christensen)

(Radio Iowa) – A northeast Iowa farmer has been sentenced to over 15 years in federal prison for stealing nearly five million dollars worth of livestock and federal pandemic assistance.
Prosecutors say 54-year-old Michael Butikofer of Monona, in Clayton County, had a large operation raising cattle for investors across the U-S and he recruited employees from South Africa who were forced to live on the farm without access to clean water or even furniture. According to a news release from the U-S Attorney’s Office, Butikofer convinced eight investors to let him sell their cattle in his name — and he took over two-and-a-half MILLION dollars of the profits for his own use. He was also accused of getting more than a million dollars in emergency assistance from the U-S-D-A at the start of the pandemic for cattle he did not own — and making false claims to get a one-and-half MILLION dollar disaster loan from the S-B-A in early 2022.

Prosecutors say Butikofer made false statements about his financial condition when he filed for bankruptcy soon after getting that S-B-A loan. The U-S Attorney’s Office says Butikofer used his bankruptcy filing to dupe three migrants who’d worked for him into accepting 30 percent of the nearly quarter of a million dollars a federal court ordered Butikofer to pay them for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Last year, federal agents rescued a husband, wife and teenaged daughter from South African from Butifer’s farm. They had been living in a camper without water, electricity or heat. Then again this past April federal agents prevented other migrants recruited to work at the farm from winding up there.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s Area Education Agencies are still making adjustments in how they operate, based on changes mandated during the last legislative session. Stan Rheingans is interim administrator for the Central Rivers A-E-A, based in Cedar Falls, and he’s also administrator of the Keystone A-E-A, based in Elkader. Under the old plan, Rheingans says schools that graduate 25 students a year would have access to the same resources as schools with 800 graduates per year.

“In the new model, the larger districts, because it’s funded on a per student basis, can purchase many of the services and materials that they would choose,” Rheingans says. “Smaller districts will have to really think through how to spend those resources, because it’s going to be based on their enrollment, and so they’ll have access to limited dollars for that.” He says the A-E-As are having to do more with fewer employees, saying their staffs have been cut by 20-percent.

“We are stretched thinner than we’ve ever been, so we’re working really hard to make sure that doesn’t impact students first,” Rheingans says. “We always want to be student-focused, making sure that as we spread out employees over that geography, that we always focus first on what’s best for kids.”

There are nine A-E-As in Iowa which provide special education services, teacher training and other services to Iowa school districts.