The Atlantic City Council will enter into a closed session near the end of their regularly scheduled meeting next Wednesday, to discuss legal matters pertaining to the POET, LLC Ethanol Transfer Station. According to the Council’s agenda, Mayor Dave Jones requested the session with City Attorney Dave Wiederstein, to discuss possible litigation relative to the transfer station.

This past Tuesday evening, the Atlantic Planning and Zoning Commission met in a regular session and discussed the POET situation. Zoning Administrator John Lund and members of the commission were not at all happy with POET for beginning work on the ethanol transfer station without first having consulted with the City. The issues of contention boiled down to public safety and wear and tear on City streets.

The only communication the company had, which was nearly a year ago, was with Atlantic Fire Chief Mark McNees, and that was with regard to the safety precautions the company said it would have in-place. Those precautions included four spill pits underneath the rail cars as they were being loaded with fuel from tractor trailers which will be coming to Atlantic from POET’s production facility in Coon Rapids.

Dave Wiederstein has indicated there isn’t much the City can do to stop or prevent work from continuing on the project, but Mayor Jones said at the P-and-Z meeting, that the City wasn’t done exploring its options on how to deal with the issue. Now it appears the track may lead to a legal resolution. The Atlantic City Council meeting begins at 5:30-p.m., on Sept. 18th.

In an update to a story we told you about earlier this week, the Iowa Dept. of Transportation has revised the date for closing the Iowa Highway 92 near Massena. The road was originally set to close at midnight on Sept. 18th for a bridge replacement project, but the DOT’s construction office in Creston says that will now take place for nine-days beginning at 7-a.m. Sept.27th.

The Iowa 92 closure is necessary as work crews remove the existing bridge and slide the new bridge into place. Traffic will be detoured around the construction zone. As previously announced, eastbound Iowa 92 traffic will be detoured on Cass County Road N-28 north to Cass County Road G-48, east to Iowa 148, and then back south to Iowa 92.

Westbound Iowa 92 traffic will be detoured north on Iowa 148, west on Cass County Road G-48, and then south on CassCounty Road N-28 to Iowa 92.

DOW CITY, Iowa (AP) — A bag of bones found in a warehouse in the small western Iowa community of Dow City two years ago are very old and will not prompt a criminal investigation. The Crawford County Sheriff’s Office was called to investigate two bags of bones found in May 2011 inside an old warehouse in the town of about 500 people. The sheriff called the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation which had the bones examined by the state medical examiner’s office.

Forensic archeologists determined the bones were from a man and a woman and at least 75 to 100 years old. The Center for Human Identification will attempt to identify DNA and the profiles will be uploaded to the Unidentified Human Remains Index and other databases of missing individuals.

ROCKWELL CITY, Iowa (AP) – Officials say a police officer in the small northern Iowa community of Rockwell City has been shot to death after responding to a standoff.  Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Michael Motsinger said at a news conference Friday morning that Officer Jamie Buenting was hit by a single gunshot and died in the early morning standoff. Officers had responded to a home after receiving a report Thursday night.

Officers arrested 32-year-old Corey Trott and charged him with first-degree murder. He was held in the Sac County Jail and information about upcoming court appearances weren’t available.

Buenting was 37. He was married with two young children.

An observant Police Officer in Red Oak, today (Friday), arrested a woman known to have been driving with a revoked license. Authorities say 69-year old Karen Jean Tuntas, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 10:50-a.m. in the 500 block of North Broad Street. Tuntas’ license had been revoked for a previous OWI offense. She was taken into custody and brought to the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center, where Tuntas was charged with Driving While Revoked/OWI related. Her bond was set at $1,000.