(Radio Iowa) – Iowa lawmakers are being urged to spend more state tax dollars to transform public spaces. Placemaking is the buzz word several Iowa business and economic development groups are using to describe the process of improving already existing attractions and creating new public spaces. Dustin Miller is executive director of the Iowa Chamber Alliance, which represents the 18 largest chambers of commerce in the state. Miller suggests placemaking is one way to deal with Iowa’s workforce shortage.

“People are not choosing jobs anymore because of a salary and benefits package,” Miller says. “They want places where they can live, work and play.” Miller says attracting new workers is the number one issue facing Iowa businesses and it has been for decades. “We’re the only state in the union that since 1900 has not doubled in population,” Miller says, “and that slow population growth has real issues.”

Jay Byers, executive director of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, says every industry and businesses of all sizes in Iowa are finding it difficult to hire AND retain workers. “Placemaking has never been more important than it is today,” Byers says. “Therefore the Greater Des Moines Partnership supports the creation of a new, large scale investment program designed to transform Iowa communities across the state.”

Jennifer Peters, tourism director for Vacation Okoboji, is president of Iowa Travel Industry Partners, which represents the state’s entire tourism industry. She’s urging Governor Reynolds to use more federal pandemic relief on tourism marketing and to boost the budget for grants that support community attractions and tourism sites around the state. “Increased tourism investment will lead to a healthier economy and strong workforce for our entire state,” she said. “Please support community place-making efforts.”

The Vision Iowa program created when Tom Vilsack was Iowa’s governor provided 200 million in grants to large scale projects, like the River Center in Dubuque, the MidAmerica Center in Council Bluffs and the Science Center and other attractions in downtown Des Moines. The Vision Iowa bonds were just paid off last year. Republican House Speaker Pat Grassley says he’s wary of putting the state in debt again. House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst says community attractions won’t solve Iowa’s workforce shortage, but better pay, affordable housing and access to child care would.

(Radio Iowa) – Nearly two-thirds of the aggravated assaults reported on the University of Iowa campus in 2020 happened at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. “Of the 49 aggravated assaults that were reported in 2020, 32 of them occurred at the UIHC,” says Mark Bullock, co-director of the university’s’ public safety department. “We’ve been meeting weekly with UIHC leadership to determine how we’re going to address this long term.”

The hospital’s CEO has recently called the pandemic “an endurance test” for health care workers. Bullock says staff shouldn’t have to endure assaults as they care for sick patients and his department has secured space for a Medical Campus Safety Center and will assign four new officers to provide security at the hospital. “Simply put, just because you work at 200 Hawkins, you shouldn’t have a lower expectation for safety and we’re doing what we can to address that.”

The hospital is located at 200 Hawkins Drive in Iowa City, next to Kinnick Stadium. Bullock made his comments while briefing the Iowa Board of Regents on the most recent report on campus crime, which covers calendar year 2020. Stats for this year are not yet available.

A hospital in Branson, Missouri, recently provided up to 400 staff members with panic buttons on their employee badges after violent attacks against health care workers there tripled in the past year.

(Radio Iowa) – With the Christmas holidays behind us and the cold reality settling in of three months of winter ahead, some Iowans may find themselves feeling like a dark cloud is looming overhead. Annette Shipley, a program therapist for seniors at Van Diest Medical Center in Webster City, says we all go through physiological changes when we start having less sunlight in our days.

“When we have the lack of sunlight, sunlight gives us vitamin D, a very important nutrient in our body that helps give us energy, makes us feel good,” Shipley says. “When we don’t get outside in those winter months, we’re going to feel a lot of what’s called the winter blues.” If those blues last more than a few days, it may be Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. Shipley says there’s a long list of potential symptoms.

Shipley says, “If you’re feeling depressed most of the day nearly every day, if you’re losing interest in your activities you once enjoyed, if you have low energy, having problems with sleeping, experiencing changes in your apetite or weight, feeling sluggish or agitated, having difficulty concentrating, feeling hopeless or worthless or guilty.” About five-percent of adults in the U.S. experience SAD and it typically lasts about 40-percent of the year. Also, it’s more common among women than men.

“A lot of those symptoms are related to depression as well,” Shipley says. “Because of SAD, it only happens during the changing of the seasons, so that’s how we know the difference between the two.” There are things you can do to boost your mood, including buying a special light that’s very bright and sitting under it — what’s called light therapy. You can also add foods to your diet that are rich in Vitamin B-12, like beef and other protein-rich foods, and increase your intake of food with Omega-3 fatty acids, like fish, and raise your Vitamin D-3 intake.

One other easy potential solution — get more sunlight.

(Radio Iowa) – Fire destroyed a popular restaurant in Hawarden this weekend. The Central Café fire occurred overnight Christmas night into Sunday morning. Hawarden Fire Chief, Duane Shiefen says nine different fire departments were called to assist with fighting the fire after a Hawarden Police officer spotted it around 1:50 a-m.

“When we arrived on scene there were visible flames, and things coming out the front side, street side of the fire,” he says. Shiefen isn’t certain as of yet as to what may have started the fire. He says fire officials are still conducting their investigation. Shiefen says nearby structures did receive some smoke damage, but there were no other buildings that had caught on fire. Owner Chad McVay posted on social media that “Our family business is gone. Central Café is a loss.”

Shiefen says firefighters were on the scene of the fire for nine hours. He says he is thankful for the community’s support of providing refreshments and other services while firefighters continued to battle the fire.  He says they had around 112 firemen who fought the fire and they appreciated all the support. Shiefen says Central Catering, a popular catering service for northwest Iowa, and based at Hawarden, is a separate business and is located in a different building and was not affected by the fire that destroyed Central Café.