MINDEN, Iowa [KETV] — The mayor of Minden, Iowa, says funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, also known as FEMA, can’t come fast enough. Last Thursday, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds requested an expedited Presidential Disaster Declaration for nine counties, including Pottawattamie, where Minden is. Mayor Kevin Zimmerman said the state and county can only do so much.

KETV in Omaha reports FEMA Region 7 external affairs director Michael Cappannari said damage assessments in Mills County are complete. On Tuesday, FEMA looked at damage in Shelby and Pottawattamie counties. Cappannari said the assessments should be done by Wednesday. That’s when communities like Minden will be one step closer to getting federal funds.

(Radio Iowa) – There have already been 14 motorcyclists killed in accidents this year and the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau and the Iowa D-O-T are trying to raise awareness of the problem. G-T-S-B spokesperson, Colleen Powell, says some people are not following basic safety rules.

“We know speed has been a factor even in our passenger cars, that people are just driving way too, fast excessive speeding. We may also be seeing that on motorcycles people being distracted,” she says. Powell says being distracted in a car or on a motorcycle can lead to bad results as you need to have all your attention focused on driving. She says there’s also another trend in the motorcycle deaths.

“Seventy-four percent of our motorcycle fatalities are unhelmeted, and that’s compared to the national average which sits closer to 38 percent,” She says. “So we’re almost double here in our state.”Powell says motorcyclists can give themselves more protection with a helmet. “We’re one of three states without a helmet law — right now people’s choice but we always encourage people to be protected, the same way we encourage people to wear seatbelts when they’re in a vehicle,” Powell says.

Motorcycles make up three tenths of one percent of all registered vehicles in the state, and point-33 percent of all vehicle miles traveled. But last year motorcycle deaths accounted for 16 percent of total traffic fatalities.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says a focus on what’s called “the science of reading” will improve the reading skills of students. The governor went to Adel Tuesday afternoon and sat among a group of first graders as their teacher led them through a reading lesson. The Adel-DeSoto-Minburn district adopted the science of reading three years ago in all grades and Travis Welker, the administrator in charge of the project — says they’ve had amazing results. Four years ago, tests showed a quarter of the district’s students were not skilled readers. This year’s results show 95 percent are proficient at reading and writing.

“Our teachers have taken this on at all levels. We’ve asked our high school teachers to engage in this, not just our lowest grade levels, ” he said, “and the results speak for themselves.” Reynolds chose an A-D-M board room as the site for signing a bill into law that requires Iowa schools to develop a plan for each student in first, second or third grade who is not reading at grade level. The law also requires testing of Iowa college students who want to be teachers to gauge their knowledge of the science of reading. Reynolds says the most recent data shows 35 percent of Iowa third graders aren’t reading at grade level.

Governor Kim Reynolds sat in the back row as ADM teacher Erin Koelker led her first graders through reading exercises.

“That’s why we’ve made it a priority to empower all teachers and school districts with the tools they need to implement the science of reading in their classrooms by providing critical training at no cost to 6000 teachers and 600 administrators,” Reynolds said. Nine-million dollars is set aside in the state budget for that training. “Stay tuned because I think this is something we’re going to be able to show progress year after year and really have some good wins to talk about,” Reynolds said.

The governor spoke with reporters at the end of a hallway the school had named “Literacy Way.”

(Radio Iowa) – Nearly 27-million dollars in state funding that could have been used for prevention and treatment of opioid use won’t be spent. States are getting money from legal settlements with pharmaceutical companies and distributors accused of fueling the opioid crisis, but Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate can’t agree on how money in the Iowa’s Opioid Settlement Fund should be spent. Republicans in the Senate favored letting Iowa’s attorney general and the Department of Health and Human Services distribute the money. House Speaker Pat Grassley says Republicans in the House had a different idea.

“Where we wanted to get is assign some of those dollars to specific projects, but at the same time not just blanket hand those dollars over to the department,” Grassley says. “…We wanted to at least set up an advisory board that the legislature would have some input on.” The state’s Opioid Settlement Fund will eventually receive 144 million dollars over the next several years. That is to be split evenly between state and local governments in Iowa. House Republicans proposed that new council made up of opioid experts in state government and the private sector review grant applications and make recommendations to the legislature for approval.

“To get those kind of dollars that you’re talking about out the door, I think the legislature should be involved in that conversation and ultimately that’s where the differences boiled down to,” Grassley says, “turn it over to the department or have a little bit more control by the legislature.”

Grassley made his comments during a recent appearance on “Iowa Press” on Iowa P-B-S.