(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Senate has unanimously approved a budget for the Iowa Department of Transportation that includes money for a new maintenance garage in eastern Iowa. Republican Senator Carrie Koelker, of Dyersville, says lawmakers are setting aside nearly 22 million dollars for the project.

“This is to demolish and build a new DOT facility in Davenport, a facility that’s not been upgraded in decades,” she says. A budget report prepared by the Legislative Services Agency indicated the current facility is deteriorating due to age and is too small to accommodate the size of snow plows and other D-O-T equipment.

The Iowa D-O-T has 109 maintenance garages. The one in Davenport is responsible for clearing snow and other maintenance on Interstate 80 and other highways in the Quad Cities area.

DES MOINES – Sixty-two Iowa students took top honors in the National History Day in Iowa contest Monday and advanced to compete in the national contest in June. The 62 students emerged from a total of 498 competitors in Monday’s state contest at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. In June, they will travel to the University of Maryland where they will compete in the National History Day national contest against nearly 3,000 students from the United States and around the world. The program is administered in Iowa by the State Historical Society of Iowa, a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs.

This year’s national qualifiers include students from 18 different schools, including (from our area):

• Abraham Lincoln High School
• Carroll High School
• Clarinda High School
• Lewis Central Senior High School

Special Award winners can be found HERE. Contest Category Award results are shown HERE.

National History Day challenges students to research, develop and present papers, exhibits, documentaries, websites and performances about historical topics related to an annual theme. This year’s theme is “Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas.”

More than half a million middle and high school students around the world participate in the program each year. In Iowa, 695 students participated in the program, which includes a Junior Division (grades 6-8), Senior Division (grades 9-12), and a non-competitive Youth Division (grades 4-5).

As part of the program, students learn important literacy skills and how to conduct research using primary, secondary, community and statewide resources. Working individually or in groups of two to five, they develop the following attributes that are essential for future success: critical thinking and problem-solving skills, research and reading skills, oral and written communication skills, presentation skills, self-esteem and confidence, as well as a sense of responsibility for and involvement in the democratic process.

More information can be found at this LINK.

(Radio Iowa) – Davenport is preparing for flooding along the nine-miles of Mississippi River that runs along the city. City officials say they learned from 2019 when the single line of HESCO barriers holding back the flood waters gave out and water rushed into a three-block section of downtown. Public Works Director, Nicole Gleason says this year’s barrier is two high and two wide and reinforced along its length with triple the sand.

“With the current setup I’m very confident. The one thing you can’t be confident in is the rain. So as long as the rain comes in as forecasted, I feel very highly confident in this set up,” Gleason says. Gleason says this barrier could take on a 22-foot flood, a similar scale to 2019. Davenport, Mayor Mike Matson stood next to the temporary floodwall in downtown Monday and says the city learned its lesson from that 2019 record flood.

“We rehearsed we pre-position we practice and set this wall up in two and a half days and then the pumps are in place the core is with us the E-M-A is with us, we’re all ready to go,” he says. Matson says this year’s wall is based on what they found from the 2019 failure.

“A lot of the questions, how big? Well now it’s bigger. We made sure whatever was connected and where the break was that we reinforced. So all of those things are in play here. Confident? We’ll see what happens, right?,” Matson says. Governor Kim Reynolds issued a state disaster proclamation Monday for the ten counties along the Mississippi River as they prepare for the flooding.

The governor’s declaration allows local governments to use state resources at no cost to prepare and respond.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa legislature has unanimously voted to increase prison sentences for human trafficking in Iowa. Representative Zach Dieken, a Republican from Granville, says the bill will dramatically change how human trafficking and sex trafficking is prosecuted in Iowa. “These crimes and their victims deserve more than a simple misdemeanor pled down from a D felony,” Dieken says. Republican Representative Mark Thompson of Clarion says Iowa has anemic sentences, forcing prosecution of major Iowa human trafficking cases into federal courts, which have a backlog. “The scourge that is on Iowa right now is that we have this and it’s hidden and most of us don’t see it. Most of us, in some cases, don’t want to see it,” Thompson says. “It’s the crime that keeps on giving. You sell drugs, you smuggle drugs, that money’s gone. You smuggle a person, that person keeps providing money to the perpetrator.”

Dieken says the rescue of a child during a western Iowa traffic stop in 2014 illustrates the gravity of the problem. “The six year old boy was not related to anyone in the vehicle and thought he was being taken to his mother’s house in Las Vegas…There was a strong feeling and suspicion from all officers involved that this child was destined for a life in child labor or the sex industry,” Dieken says. “This trooper would see a national award for this traffic stop. This happened in Council Bluffs, not in some far away land.” Those convicted of trafficking anyone under the age of 18 could be sentenced to life in an Iowa prison once the bill becomes law. Representative Elinor Levin, a Democrat from Iowa City, says human trafficking is a serious offense.  “I am not generally a big fan of increasing penalties, but this is a case in which I think the current standard does not match the crime,” Levin says.

The bill passed the House 96-to-zero on March 9th and the Senate approved it today (Tuesday) on a 49-to-zero vote. Senator Brad Zaun of Urbandale was the only senator who spoke before the vote.  “This bill’s very important. Seems like most all the parties have agreed to what we’re trying to do here,” Zaun says. “If you’re doing, engaging in any of these human trafficking, you’re going to pay the price.” Attorney General Brenna Bird has expressed support for the bill and legislators expect Governor Reynolds to sign it into law.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Washington was the first state to criminalize human trafficking in 2003. In 2006, the Iowa legislature unanimously voted to make human trafficking a class D felony — which carries a fine of up to 75-hundred dollars and a sentence of up to five years in prison.