SERGEANT BLUFF, Iowa (AP) — A former building inspector says in his lawsuit that he was fired for reporting code violations that the mayor and other officials in Sergeant Bluff told him to ignore. David Christensen says in his lawsuit that Mayor Jon Winkel and others conspired to fire him for reporting code violations that endangered public safety. He is seeking a jury trial and an award of damages for back pay, loss of salary and benefits and additional punitive damages. The lawsuit was filed last week in Woodbury County District Court.

Winkel told the Sioux City Journal that the city does not comment on pending litigation, but he did say, “Our story will be quite a bit different from what you’ve heard from the other side.”

The Creston Police Department today (Thursday), reports two arrests recently. At around 3:25-a.m. today (Thursday), 29-year old Derek Jason Noble, of Raymore, MO., was arrested in the 100 block of N. Elm Street, for Public Intoxication. His bond was set at $300. And, at around 10:55-p.m. Wednesday, 31-year old Jeffrey Michael Donald Drake, of Creston, was arrested at his home on a Union County warrant for Domestic Abuse Assault. Drake was being held without bond in the Union County Jail, pending an appearance before the magistrate.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A former state of Iowa worker who’d used the words “In Christ” in his work emails has lost his lawsuit against the state. The Sioux City Journal reports that a federal jury in Sioux City found Wednesday that the state Department of Human Services did not fail to accommodate Michael Mial’s religious practices. Mial sued the department and several individuals at the sex offender unit in Cherokee in January 2017, saying his firing violated his rights to free speech and religion.

The lawsuit said Mial, a psychiatric security specialist, was fired in April 2016 after a performance review in which supervisors told him his religious faith was beneficial to patients at the sex offender unit. But they asked him to keep his religion separate from his work because he’d been using “In Christ” in the personalized signature block that appeared in internal emails sent to other employees.

(Radio Iowa) — Nine Area Education Agencies cover the state of Iowa and their administrators are hoping lawmakers will help plug a 15 million dollar budget shortfall to address pressing needs. One area the agencies want to work on is special education programs. Another, according to Central Rivers Area Education Agency spokesperson Beth Strike, is to help school districts with mental health support. “Every school district we work with is telling us that they have more and more students with mental health needs. And often times, communities may or may not have the resources to help in that case — depending on whether its in rural Iowa and so on. We all know we’ve got more work to do to provide those supports,” Strike says.

Strike says a third area is to help special needs students better transition from high school to the next steps in their lives. “So, we want to increase that likelihood that when those kiddos leave the K-12 system, they are fully prepared to make a positive contribution in their community, and also in their workforce,” Strike says. “And we think we have quite a bit of help we can be providing in that area.”

Strike says the A-E-A’s cannot take any more budget hits. “We’re not filling positions often times, we’re trying to reduce through attrition. That’s been going on for several years,” according to Strike. “And just like local schools — you can only do that for so long before it begins to be a situation where you feel like you’re just not at the highest level you could be. We do feel ware are at the point where it just can’t get any lower.”

Area Education Agencies have been in Iowa since 1974.