Pottawattamie County, Iowa – Pottawattamie County is continuing a commitment to make communication with its residents a top priority by hosting another town hall meeting in Oakland, its third in the last 16 months. The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, August 14 th, from 6:30pm to 8:00pm. The informational discussion will occur inside the Oakland Community Center at 614 Dr Van Zee Road, with no formal deliberation or action from the Board of Supervisors.

Pottawattamie County held two similar forums in 2023, providing an opportunity for residents to hear from county leaders about the latest developments. “Understanding residents aren’t always able to attend our weekly meetings, we continue to do our best to find ways to engage and inform,” said Susan Miller, Chairperson for the Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors. “We selected a venue for this town hall meeting that may be easier to access for some of our rural residents, a time of day that may be more manageable, and a time of year that doesn’t interfere with harvest season,” said Miller. “We’ve been strategic in our planning of the event.”

PowerPoint slides are expected to accompany brief presentations by leaders of several county departments during the meeting, before concluding with a question-and-answer session with those in attendance. “We’ve bolstered communication through our website and social media channels, but creating avenues to deliver information in-person remains important as well,” said Miller. “This platform allows an opportunity to outline the services our departments work hard to provide and celebrate the many reasons that make Pottawattamie County a special place to work, live, and play.”

Representatives will also be on hand to provide guidance to property owners and residents impacted by tornadoes, storms, and flood events occurring between April and July. FEMA Individual Assistance is available and team members will provide survivors with application status updates and referrals to community resources. Those impacted by the April tornadoes have until August 23rd to apply for FEMA assistance.

About the Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors: Regularly scheduled meetings for the Board of Supervisors are held every Tuesday at 10:00am. To view archived meetings, visit YouTube.com/PottawattamieCountyIA. To learn more about the Board of Supervisors, visit PottCounty-ia.gov/departments/board_of_supervisors.

(Radio Iowa) – When school starts in less than a month, students in 10 Iowa districts will go to school just four days a week. Iowa Senate President Amy Sinclair says it’s happening because of a recent change in Iowa law. It lets schools choose to calculate the required amount of classroom instruction each school year by the total number of days or just over a thousand hours.

“I have started the process of looking at the results,” she says. “We always want to know how this is impacting student achievement, how this is impacting families who utilize public schools.” Over 16-hundred districts in 24 states have opted for a four-day week and most offer child care on the other weekday. Sinclair says research shows parents depend upon schools for child care.

“Unless the data prove us otherwise in student achievement or in a family’s ability to maintain meaningful work, I’m happy letting those local school districts make those decisions,” she says. There’s been some push-back in other states on a four-day school week. A bill introduced in Louisiana sought to ban four day school weeks and legislators in Missouri and Texas have considered limiting which districts can switch to four days a week.

(The following Iowa school districts will have four-day weeks: Cardinal Community, East Union, Highland, Martensdale-St. Mary’s, Mormon Trail, Moulton-Udell, Murray, North Iowa, Saydel and Waco.)

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa advocate for Ukrainian immigrants says it’s become harder to get people out of the war-torn country. Martha Hulshof of Ireton has helped about 150 Ukrainians move to northwest Iowa through her sister, who is a missionary in western Ukraine. Hulshof says the process that has taken a couple of months can now take more than six months. She hasn’t being told why there’s been a delay, but says it is putting lives at risk.

“It’s heartbreaking what is going on over there. It’s war. And people forget since we don’t see on the news anymore what war’s really like with all the death and torture.” And Hulshof says flooding has compounded the issue of finding help for the refugees.“The situation here is hard, and it’s just that much harder to find houses and vehicles when people here have lost so much, too,” Hulshof says.

Hulshof says she is looking for northwest Iowans who want to open their homes to Ukrainian refugees.

(By Sheila Brummer, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa is mirroring the national trend with a slight drop in deaths due to alcohol, drugs, and suicide, according to a report from a non-partisan public health policy organization.

Dr. Nadine Gracia, president and CEO of Trust for America’s Health, says figures for 2022 show the first substantial drop in those deaths in five years, though there’s still much work to be done. She says the long-term trend is still alarmingly high.

“In the state of Iowa, the data show that there were over 1,600 individuals who died due to alcohol, drugs and suicide,” Gracia says. “That was about a 1% decrease from the previous year. We saw decreases in alcohol induced death and drug overdose deaths, but there was actually an increase in suicide deaths by 6%.”

Over the past two decades, the study finds deaths from alcohol, drugs, and suicide in the U.S. increased by 142 percent. Gracia says drug overdoses, in particular, rose relentlessly in the past ten years as synthetic opioids gained in popularity. She says rural residents appear to be especially at risk.

Trust for America’s Health graphic

“We do see, for example, higher death rates among people who died from suicide from people who are living in rural areas, people who are men,” Gracia says. “For drug overdose deaths, we also see higher rates for adults who are ages 35 to 54, as well as males.”

In the report, “Pain in the Nation 2024: the Epidemic of Alcohol, Drug, and Suicide Deaths,” researchers found a slight drop in the combined rate of alcohol, drug, and suicide deaths, but that rate is still more than double what it was 20 years ago. Gracia points to a lack of access to treatment options.

“You look at the state of Iowa, for example, about 59% of the state’s residents actually live in an area that has a mental health care shortage,” Gracia says, “so we need to assure that we’re bolstering and increasing access to mental health care services for anyone and everyone who needs them.”

To save lives, she says more work needs to be done to implement prevention and harm reduction strategies, and to ensure access to mental and behavioral health care.