(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa woman and her husband from the small town of Swan south of Des Moines will be in New York for a special one million dollar Powerball drawing. Chris Manuel of Swan is among 29 nationwide finalists for the Powerball First Millionaire of the Year drawing on New Year’s Eve. The winner will be announced just after during A-B-C’s broadcast of “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” from Times Square. The 60-year-old Manuel is a locksmith who has undergone cancer surgery and radiation treatments — and says says the money would be a big boost.

“I see retiring early you know, I still got another year and a half but if I would win the money and I could retire a year early and enjoy this time with my husband,” she says. This is the fourth consecutive year for the Powerball First Millionaire of the Year promotion, and the first time since the inaugural edition in 2019 that finalists get to travel to New York City for the event. Manuel said she’s heard from nearly everyone in her Marion County community of 76 about her win, and she expect them to be watching. “My next door neighbor who I know she has told everybody and anybody about it so yeah there’s gonna be a lot of people watching,” she says. Manuel’s husband Randy says he thought it was going to be something bad when she told him she had something to tell him.

Chris & Randy Manuel

“She told me that her name was drawn. You sure? That’s what they said. She wasn’t sure either….I mean she’s pretty lucky so hopefully her luck keeps going,” he says. Each of this year’s finalists receives an exclusive trip for two to New York valued at more than 28-thousand dollars that includes round-trip airfare; a three-night hotel stay in Times Square; two tickets to a theater performance and other iconic excursions; all meals while in New York, one-thousand dollars spending cash. Just after the ball drops to usher in the New Year, Powerball’s First Millionaire of the Year will be announced live on the national broadcast at 11 p-m Iowa time.

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports three, recent arrests. Authorities say 21-year-old Nicholas Turnbull, of Red Oak, was arrested Thursday morning at the Sheriff’s Office, for Driving Under Suspension ($300 bond). And, there were two arrests this (Friday) morning, in Mills County: 38-year-old Lamberto Campuzano, of Columbus, OH, was arrested at around 12:34-a.m. in the area of Highway 34 & Hilman Road. He was charged with OWI/1st offense (Bond $1,000); 35-year-old Clayton Shane Geick, of Council Bluffs, was arrested at around 9:30-a.m.  He was taken into custody at the Mills County Jail for Violation of a No Contact Order, and was being held in the jail without bond.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors held their final meeting of the year, this (Friday) morning, in Atlantic. The Board moved to appoint Mark Knudsen, of Atlantic, as Maintenance Superintendent in the Cass County Engineer’s Department. Engineer Trent Wolken….

With the appointment, Knudsen’s current position will be posted internally at first for five business days, and if there are no County employees interested, with then be posted externally.The Board then received a presentation from Cara Morgan, Executive Director of the non-profit Golden Hills RC & D organization, based in Oakland. Board of Supervisors Chair Steve Baier is on the Golden Hills Board, also. Morgan spoke with regard to tourism, trails and information with regard to the feasibility of having a full- or part-time Cass County Tourism Director.

She said by using Golden Hills, Cass County would have the intellectual and resources and practical experience of their entire team, in writing grants and other sources of funding.

She said as far as what it takes to bring tourism to the County, Morgan said they can’t come in and tell us what we need, as far as promoting the sites and towns in our county.

Board Chair Steve Baier…

You may recall we mentioned that after serving 15 years as a volunteer promoting Cass County Tourism, Kenner Baxter, of Marne, announced last Spring, her plans to retire. During last week’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting, CADCO Executive Director Jennifer McEntaffer, and Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bailey Smith, told the Board they have no desire to take on a Tourism Director’s position, due to their current, busy schedule and duties. The Supervisors took no action on the matter at this time. It will be considered during the budgeting process. Morgan said if the Board decides to move forward with the commitment, she would prepare a Letter of Engagement.

In other business the Cass County Supervisors passed the adoption of a County Employee Wellness Policy, and a Resolution allocating a portion of the County’s ARPA (Covid relief) funds, for $25,700 in roof repairs to the Hitchcock House. They also tabled approval of a five-year lease extension for the Cambridge Law Firm for use of the upper floor of the County’s building at 707 Poplar Street, in Atlantic. The Board wanted time to review the contract and current market prices. They will act on the matter during their meeting on January 3^rd.

The Board accepted the resignation of Karen Thomsen, from the County Zoning Board of Adjustment.

(Radio Iowa) – Republican lawmakers say they’re waiting for an Iowa Supreme Court ruling before proposing any new abortion restrictions. House Speaker Pat Grassley says it would be unwise to consider legislation before the court acts.  “I want the courts to give us the guidelines that we need to move forward because I think we’re going to get one chance to do this and do it the right way once we have that,” Grassley says. “I don’t plan on speculating on this one until we have some more concrete answers from the court.”

Governor Kim Reynolds has asked the court reverse a previous decision and allow a six-week abortion ban she approved in 2018 take effect. After this summer’s U-S Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade, 13 states now have laws that nearly or totally bans abortion, but Iowa Senate Republican Leader Jack Whitver says Iowa is in a unique position. “Really there is no standard in state law from our supreme court on what would be allowed or not allowed,” Whitver says. “…Until we get some guidance from the (Iowa) Supreme Court, it’s hard for us to take another step.” Both Whitver and Grassley voted for the bill that banned abortions in Iowa after the sixth week of a pregnancy.

“We passed the heartbeat bill that had exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother back in 2018,” Whitever says. “We’ve continued to build our majority since that point. I think that’s something Iowans support and I think that’s a good policy for the state of Iowa.” House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst (KON-frist) says Democrats will oppose any new abortion restrictions. “The governor and Republicans will stop at nothing to take away reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy from Iowans, so I can’t imagine a world in which abortion doesn’t come up this legislative session,” Konfrst says. House Democratic Leader Zach Wahls expects Republican legislators to propose a more restrictive law than the six-week abortion ban.

“The Republican agenda is to ban abortion,” Wahls says. “Obviously, they’ve been working aggressively to stack the courts with judges and justices that agree with them on that question.” Governor Kim Reynolds has appointed five of the seven members of the Iowa Supreme Court. Attorneys working on her behalf are arguing the legal landscape has changed after Roe v Wade was overturned and the Iowa Supreme Court should use a new, stricter standard to evaluate challenges to abortion restrictions.

(Radio Iowa) – State liquor sales revenues were up by nearly four percent in the fiscal year that ended in July, in what was the lowest increase in five years. Sales last year were up 13%, and Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division Chief Financial Officer, Leisa Bertram, says things appear to be leveling off following a pandemic sales surge. “Every year we kind of budget between three and five percent would be a normal increase. So yeah, the last couple of years having a large increases are definitely an outlier. This is where I would say yeah, 3.75% is more of a normal increase,” Bertram says.

The gallons of liquor sold dropped by 70,000. “One of the main reasons is our top seller this year was Tito’s (vodka). Historically, it’s been black velvet for about the last 10 years. So Tito’s is a little higher price product. So selling, you know higher price items, and then also selling more full cases,” Bertram says. Liquor sales brought in $431 million, and a record of just more than $150 million from liquor sales was turned over to the state along with another $19 million in licensing and taxes.

Another factor in the liquor sales was a continued increase in the number of convenience and smaller stores that obtained licenses. Bertram says those stores usually have a smaller inventory. “But they do make up a good amount of our of our licensees. And so yeah, the distribution of those, you can get liquor at more places,”” Bertram says.”But again, the variety might not be as big at some of those smaller stores. But we are seeing a trend towards smaller footprint stores. We have some major retailers that are opening smaller footprint stores as well.” Bertram says the supply chain issues did create some issues for specific products. “So we did see more out of stocks this year, you know, based on those supply chain constraints. What we didn’t see, though, is when we were out of stock on an item, our customers would kind of pivot to another item,” she says. “So we weren’t necessarily losing sales — but we were losing sales on those specific brands.”

She says people were able to kind of pivot and find a replacement their favorite drink — and that included instate native distillery items that are available.”So if people couldn’t get what they really needed, or what they got into in the past, we were able to kind of step in line with other brands,” Bertram says. December is one of the top months for alcohol sales, and the sales this December will be part of the new fiscal year numbers. Bertram says early indications are the recent sales trend is continuing. “We’re just about the same increase as we were at the end of this fiscal year report. So year to date, we’re at about four percent increase over last year,” she says. So, I’d say our revenues are still strong, we’re still pulling in good revenue. But we’re not seeing those huge increases, you’re seeing a small increase. And it’s, again, more indicative of what we’ve seen in the past. ”

Bertram says the cost of some products has gone up, while the cost of others have gone down, so overall costs haven’t gone up that much for liquor despite inflation.