Firefighters from Irwin and  Defiance were called to the scene of a house fire early this (Thursday) morning about two-miles southwest of Manilla. The call about the fire at 1635 2400th Street came in just before 4-a.m.  The family reportedly got out safely.

No other details are available.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A New Jersey company has announced plans to invest $42 million in a west-central Iowa wind farm.  The Des Moines Register says the project will go up in Carroll County and have a capacity of 20 megawatts.

The company, NJR Clean Energy Ventures, is a subsidiary of Wall, N.J.-based New Jersey Resources. It has made a 25-year power purchase agreement with Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy.  The wind farm is expected to be operational by spring 2015.

The Atlantic City Council Wednesday, authorized Mayor Dave Jones to execute an Engineering and Design Services Agreement with Snyder and Associates for the 2014 Street Improvement Projects (SIP). City Administrator Doug Harris says the lump sum cost for the design and construction inspection services is $74,000, which he says reflects a reasonable 9.9% of the estimated project cost. The preliminary cost estimate for the work is $755,000.

The 2014 Street Improvement Projects include:

• The reconstruction of 17th St. from Redwood Dr. to East Dead End.

• Mill, patch & overlay 9th St. from Palm to Cedar, and Elm to Plum.

• Mill, patch & overlay 13th St. from Cherry to the Dead End east of Plum.

• Mill, patch & overlay Locust St. from 8th to 10th.

• Mill, patch and overlay Maple St. from 7th to 10th.

City Administrator Doug Harris said the City has the option of retaining the current contractor and subcontractors working on City Streets for the work, both of whom are willing to hold their current contract prices. Or, the City could request competitive bids for the projects. Harris said the benefit of utilizing a change order is that it will lock-in last year’s prices and save the City money, not to mention time.

He said the last time the City went out for SIP bids, there were only a couple of general contractors who replied, and a couple of subcontractors who pour the concrete. Harris said the scope of the project is one reason why they didn’t receive much interest the last time they went out for bids, and why a change order may be most beneficial.

City Attorney Dave Wiederstein says the City assumes some risks if it elects to go the change order route. He said but it would save the City money. The risk he spoke of was if another contractor “Raises an issue [as to the City using a Change Order], then we’d have to go back to the bidding process.” Councilwoman Kathy Somers said the City “Has a history of contractors raising issues. I can think of at least two times” when a contractor has spoken up about the awarding of contracts when bids weren’t requested.

After much discussion, the Council decided to informally ask area contractors if they would be interested in submitting a bid prior to making an official request for bids. If there is not much interest, they’ll move forward with the change order process. In other business, Doug Harris announced Atlantic is receiving another “Tree City USA” award. The City has received the award and honor for many years. The official announcement will come April 3rd, in Johnston.

Iowans will likely be spending more money at grocery stores this year, but USDA economist Ricky Volpe  says the food price increase should not be dramatic. “We generally expect grocery store prices to increase maybe around 2.7 or 2.8 percent every year and the current outlook for 2014 really catches that right on the button,” Volpe says. One area where shoppers will keep seeing high prices will be in the beef aisle. Volpe says that’s mostly because cattle herds have gotten smaller since 2011.

“The number of cattle in the U.S. is comparable to where we were in the 1950s and of course we have a much larger population and we’re exporting a lot more, so consumers should not expect a huge price increase, but certainly for these very high prices to stay and even inch up a little bit more,” Volpe says. A wild card influence on food prices in 2014 will be if wholesalers and retailers decide to widen what have been narrow profit margins in recent years.

“There’s nobody in the food supply chain who can permanently absorb losses or reductions in their margins so that should pick up at some point in 2014 and should translate into a quickening of the pace of food price inflation over at least what we saw in 2013.”

(Radio Iowa)