(Radio Iowa) – The Democrats’ Build Back Better plan promises sweeping prescription drug reform, something Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has unsuccessfully tried to accomplish in the Senate for years. Grassley, a Republican, was asked if that issue alone is enough for him to support the near-two-trillion dollar bill. “Absolutely not,” Grassley says. “It’s going to hurt innovation — which my bill doesn’t — and it doesn’t have any of the reforms in that my bill had in to Medicare Part D.”
Backers of Build Back Better are hoping to pass the measure before Christmas. The White House says the plan would lower prescription drug costs by letting Medicare negotiate prices, but Grassley remains unconvinced. Grassley says, “Taxpayers are going to continue to pay a great deal of the cost of what we call the catastrophic portions of Part D Medicare.”
One example backers of the legislation use is insulin. Under the Democrats’ plan, insulin prices for seniors would be capped at 35-dollars a month — while some diabetics are now facing costs of up to 700-dollars a month for the medication. Grassley says his bill, the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act of 2020, would save taxpayers 95-billion dollars, reduce out-of-pocket spending by 72-billion and cut premiums by one-billion.
(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig has released a video to announce he will seek reelection in 2022. “Agriculture benefits all Iowans. That’s why we’re looking ahead to ensure that the future is bright for the next generation of Iowans who choose to go into agriculture,” Naig said. “We’ve worked to expand markets for Iowa farmers and our rural communities, working to meet the food and renewable fuel needs of consumers here and around the world.”
Naig, who is a Republican, grew up on a farm in the northwest corner of the state, near Cylinder. In March of 2018, Ag Secretary Bill Northey resigned to take a U-S-D-A job and Governor Reynolds appointed Naig to serve as secretary of agriculture. In November of 2018, Naig was a full four-year term as the state’s top agriculture official. “Agriculture is the backbone of our state and our economy,” Naig says. “I’ll continue to stand up for Iowa’s hard working farm families and ag communities.”
Naig is Iowa’s 15th secretary of agriculture. In 2018, Naig finished three percent ahead of his Democratic challenger. No Democrat has formally announced they intend to challenge Naig in 2022.
Listen back to the 2021 8-Player Football Semifinal game between the CAM Cougars and Audubon Wheelers. Chris Parks and Mike Smith have the call from the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.
(Des Moines, Iowa) – More than $289,000 in 50 percent cost-share grants have recently been awarded to 115 of Iowa’s rural fire departments to aid their efforts in protecting Iowan’s and their property from wildfires. The grants offer valuable funding assistance for wildfire suppression, personal protective and communications equipment.
Locally, among the fire departments receiving 2021 VFA grants, is: Adair, Anita, Charter Oak, Clarinda, Creston, De Soto, Elk Horn, Farragut, Glenwood, Grant, Griswold, Harlan, Lenox, Little Sioux, Logan, Menlo, Mondamin, Onawa, Persia, Shenandoah, Stuart, Walnut and Yale.
The grants are made possible through Iowa DNR Forestry, in cooperation with US Forest Service – State and Private Forestry. Gail Kantak, fire supervisor with DNR Forestry, reminds all fire departments of the importance of submitting Wildland Fire Reports whenever they respond to a wildland fire or provide assistance to a prescribed or controlled wildland fire. Wildland fire reporting forms are available at www.iowadnr.gov/fire. Departments returning these reports receive priority points when the Volunteer Fire Assistance grant applications are scored. These wildland fire reports are compiled locally and nationally and are reported to Congress.
(Des Moines, Iowa) – Officers with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) responded to four deer hunting incidents over the weekend – one related to property damage, one minor injury, one serious injury and one fatality – and one related to pheasant hunting.
An individual was shot in the midsection by a member of his party who was shooting at a running deer in southern Muscatine County. He was transported to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. The investigation is ongoing.
An individual was treated and released from the hospital in Waukon after a slug grazed his right hand and forearm during a deer drive near Lansing, in Allamakee County.
A house was struck by an unknown shooter near the Howard County town of Elma.
A hunter was killed after being struck in the torso while hunting the Red Rock Wildlife Area in Marion County. It’s the first hunting related fatality of 2021. The incident remains under investigation.
A pheasant hunter received four pellets to the neck and face area while hunting in Calhoun County. He was transported to the hospital in Sac City where he was treated and released.
The first of Iowa’s two shotgun deer hunting seasons will end on Dec. 8. Second shotgun deer season runs from Dec. 11-19. An estimated 120,000 hunters are expected to participate in one of the two seasons. Jamie Cook, hunter education coordinator for the Iowa DNR, said these incidents underscore the importance of putting together a hunting plan that identifies the role and location of each member of the hunting party and then following the plan when in the field. “The hunting plan is a step by step playbook for how the hunt will unfold that includes reviewing safe hunting practices, avoid target fixation, and drives home the point of not just identifying the deer, but what is beyond the deer, before taking the shot. It’s the most essential part of every hunt,” Cook said.
He also stressed the importance of wearing more than the minimum amount of blaze orange than is required for the deer gun seasons. Iowa law requires one of the following pieces of external clothing of solid blaze orange: vest, jacket, coat, sweatshirt, sweater, shirt or coveralls. “You can’t have too much blaze orange on. If the color has started to fade, it’s time to replace it. You want to be seen from all sides,” he said. Cook said it’s also each hunter’s responsibility to know and understand their limitations as a hunter and the firearms capability and to stay within those.
“This is especially true when utilizing a rifle for the first time during the shotgun season. Hunter’s need to exercise good judgment when taking a shot and remember that when using a higher capacity magazine that they could be shooting over a longer period of time and possibly covering a larger area so they need to be even more aware of what’s going on around them and not get fixated on the target,” he said.
Listen back to the 2021 8-Player Football Championship game between CAM and Easton Valley. Chris Parks and Matt Mullenix have the call of CAM’s first ever State Championship at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.
Officials with the Glenwood Police Department, report the arrest on Monday, of a woman from Nebraska. 41-year-old Chastity Auman, of Omaha, was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance. Her cash or surety bond was set at $1,000.
(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Education’s annual report on the 2020-2021 school year for public schools showed a drop of nearly six-thousand students. Department of Education analyst, Jay Pennington, says it is the first drop in enrollment in about ten years. “The largest decreases were in the preschool and kindergarten grades. My guess is that due to some of the unknowns going into the 20-21 school year — that parents opted to keep their kids at home,” Pennington says.
Pennington says they are working on the numbers and do expect an increase in enrollment for the current year. “I think the real question is how many of the six-thousand or so of the students that we lost actually come back for the 2021-22 school year,” he says. Pennington says while there were losses — the enrollment pattern stayed the same as it has been the last several years. That pattern sees about one-third of districts — mostly in the larger urban areas — gaining students. “At the same time we are also seeing two-thirds of districts declining in enrollment. And those typically are the more rural parts of the state,” according to Pennington. “so, even though there was a decrease of a sizable number of students — it sort of followed the typical third to two-thirds pattern.”
The Ed Department’s report showed some positives for students. “For the Class of 2020, we saw a nice increase in the average A-C-T score, which is exciting, unfortunately, we also had fewer students taking that A-C-T in the year. We saw an increase in graduation rate,” he says. He says there are some negatives in the report’s numbers as well. “We saw a sort of an across-the-board decrease in mathematic achievement in the most recent report. At the same time we also saw sort of a mixed bag in terms of some increases in English language, arts — which includes reading and writing — with some grade levels going up and other grade levels going down,” Pennington says.
Other numbers from the report showed the state’s total per-pupil expense in the 2019-20 school year was up 56 dollars from 10-thousand-738 the year before. The number of minority students dropped slightly from 26-point-one percent to 25-point-seven percent.
(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors, today (Wednesday), voted to bring back to the table, the matter of vacating a 40-foot wide, 145-year-old section of road known as 570th Street, north of Boston Road in Brighton Township/northwestern Cass County, that is in the State of Iowa Right-Of-Way, under Interstate 80. Afterward, they voted to approve a Resolution closing and vacating the road. Board Chair Steve Baier read the proposed Resolution, prior to the Board’s vote:
(The intent of this road closure is to vacate all of 570th Street contained in the State of Iowa right-of-way for Interstate 80.)
The Resolution further stipulates….
(The remaining roadway segments of 570th north of Boston and south of the Cass/Shelby County line will remain a Class A roadway and Cass County Bridge #460 will remain a priority; and in the event a bridge inspection recommends a posting under a legal 80-thousand pound load, remedial steps to alleviate the deficiency will be taken and be a priority.)
The order to vacate the road is contingent upon one thing…
(The execution of a cooperative agreement fora bridge removal mitigation program between the County and Iowa DOT.)
In other business, the Board discussed but took no action at this time, on the establishment of an abatement plan for industrial or commercial property improvements for specified classes of property in the non-incorporated area of Cass County.
They approved an allowance of $40 per month, for use of a personal cell phone for County business. Their action applies to the following individuals: Info Tech Sean Berens; custodian Dan Proehl; Secondary Roads: shop foreman Curtis Holste; Operators III Ethan Miller and Leo Beschorner; working foremen David Christensen, Andrew Steffen and Scott Holaday; yardman Mark Knudsen; assistant to engineer Rich Hansen; engineer Trent Wolken; Engineering technician Christian Kinzie; Treasurer Tracey Marshall; Sheriff civil deputy Spencer Walton.
The Board discussed financing options for loan notes of six, eight or ten years. After due discussion, the consensus was to proceed with the six-year option. Action will be taken at next session. And, the Board postponed action on approving a construction permit for a 1,280 head of deep bedded beef cattle confinement building for A-to-Z Feeders owned by Alan Zellmer. The structure would be an addition to an existing confinement building, and would bring the total number of beef cattle head to 2,180. The application calls for it to be located in Section 9 of Washington Township. The proposal will be published in the Atlantic News Telegraph for review. The public will have until Dec. 17th to voice or submit written objection. A public hearing is NOT required. The Board must score the Zellmer’s application via the Master Matrix and submit its recommendation to the Iowa DNR no later than Jan. 3, 2022. More formal action on the matter is expected to take place Dec. 21st.
And, Cass County Auditor Dale Sunderman reported a Post-Election Audit Report (confirm election equipment accurately counted the votes on 11/30/2021 Atlantic Run-off Election). Audit was conducted on Dec. 6. Hand count was same as machine count.
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