DES MOINES, IA – A Judge has sentenced a man from Des Moines to serve 20-years in prison, on drug and weapon charges. The sentence was handed down Monday, against 34-year-old Michael Joseph Wilson, for his role in crimes that include: conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, heroin, and MDMA; possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime; attempt to possess contraband in prison; and violation of supervised release.

In May 2021, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Wilson’s Des Moines residence. Officers found methamphetamine, heroin, MDMA, and a loaded revolver. At the time, Wilson was on federal supervised release for an Indiana firearm conviction. While in the Polk County Jail awaiting sentencing, Wilson worked with others in an attempt to get contraband, specifically K2, into the jail by imitating legal mail.

At sentencing, the Court sentenced Wilson to: 120 months for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, 60 months (5-years) for possessing a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, 12 months for attempting to possess contraband in prison, and 48 months (2-years) for violating his supervised release. Each sentence must be served consecutively, for a total of term of 240 months in prison.

The investigation was conducted by the Des Moines Police Department, United States Marshals Service, and Polk County Sheriff’s Office. It was prosecuted by the U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

(Radio Iowa) – With a winter storm moving into the state, officials at the Des Moines International Airport are advising travelers to keep a close watch on flight delays and cancellations. Airport spokeswoman Kayla Kovarna says ground crews will be taking time to prevent ice buildup on planes and that’s what often causes delays.  “Aircraft have to be pushed back to a special area on the ramp so that we can collect that chemical,” Kovarna says. “So they get pushed back, then the aircraft is de-iced, and then it has to be cleared by air traffic control to take off.”

Kovarna says the quickest way to get news of delays and cancellations is through a specific airline’s mobile app. The airport expects to see an uptick in passengers this holiday season with up to 70-thousand people departing from Des Moines over the last two weeks of December.

LED Display – Airport flight status board

Kovarna says travelers can expect to wait longer getting on and off their flights as ground crews clear ice from the planes. “Ground crews, they are responsible for both that de-icing and de-planing,” she says, “so, give them some grace, pack that ‘Iowa nice’ and just be patient because it might take you a little bit longer to get to the gate and de-planed.”

Kovarna says airport staff are in charge of clearing snow from runways, but it’s the airlines that make the call to delay or cancel flights. She says the Des Moines airport has never closed completely for weather since the Airport Authority took over management in 2011.

(reporting by Grant Gerlock, Iowa Public Radio)

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Officials with Atlantic Municipal Utilities are offering some tips on helping your home fight the extreme frigid temperatures and wind chills over the next few days. They say that our homes’ heating systems are NOT designed for -20 to -30-degree temperatures with wind chills into -40 and up to -50+. Newer homes will struggle to maintain temperature and older homes will NOT maintain temperature and the temperature WILL drop while the heating system is working at full capacity. They suggest the following:

1. Raise the temperature in your home on Wednesday morning, 2 to 4 degrees above your normal setting.

2. Take all programmable thermostats out of setback mode and set on a permanent HOLD.

3. If you have a furnace; replace the filter.

4. Keep garage doors closed.

5. Limit opening exterior doors.

6. Make sure air vents and radiators are not blocked or obstructed.

7. If you have a 90%+ furnace and boiler: You must keep the intake and exhaust clear of ice and snow. During these cold temperatures, ice can build up. A 90%+ furnace and boiler have 2 white PVC pipes; an exhaust pipe and an intake pipe that are generally on the side or back of your home. In some instances, they are on your roof, do NOT go on your roof to clear the pipe.

• If the temperature in your home is dropping and your radiators are HOT with boiler systems or you have HOT air coming out of your vents with furnaces DO NOT PANIC. Please make sure that your heating system continues to operate.
• If the temperatures drop in your home, it will not be able to recover until temperatures rise and the windchill diminishes. Our heating systems cannot overcome temperatures -20 to -30 with wind chill up to -50+. They are sized to operate at 0 degrees outdoor. Put your thermostat on hold 70 degrees or higher.
• To help minimize temperature loss you can boil water, make soup, or stews; they help introduce humidity and warmer temperatures into your home.

DO NOT USE YOUR OVEN or a GRILL TO HEAT YOUR HOME.

• Please check on neighbors and elderly residents during these extreme temperatures. Stay warm and safe this week.

(Audubon, Iowa) – Audubon Community School District Superintendent Eric Trager reported to the School Board, Monday, an update on the District’s Building Project. Mr. Trager said the news there was “pretty much all positive.”

He said they still have the whole downstairs area to work on, however, so there might be some surprises in-store…but hopefully not.

In other business, the Audubon School Board approved a request to SBRC for MSA-Dropout Prevention. And, they discussed their Board goals.

The Audubon School District will be on Winter Break from Dec. 22nd through Jan. 2, 2023.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The City Council will meet this evening during a regularly scheduled session. On their agenda, is action on passing two resolutions. The first is for the Final Plat associated with the Prairie Hills Development Subdivision, in Atlantic. During their meeting on Nov. 16th, the Council adopted the preliminary plat for the project. The final plat was reviewed by the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission on Dec. 13th. It was unanimously adopted and sent to the City Council with a recommendation for final approval. The final plat retains the lot layouts of the preliminary plat, but only formalizes lots 1 through 17. Those lots are the target for Phase 1 of the housing development project.

The second Resolution is to Amend the City of Atlantic’s Personnel Policy, “By repealing and replacing Series 100 and Series 200 Codes through 206, with New Codes numbered as the same.” City Administrator John Lund says he and Mayor Grace Garrett spent a considerable amount of time the past Spring, Summer and Early Fall, going through the City’s Personnel Policy, and the Personnel and Finance Committee met in September and reviewed the proposed changes. The Committee has endorsed the proposed amendments as written.

In his report to the Council, John Lund will discuss and/or present the City’s Department Head reports.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Workforce Development Director, Beth Townsend says one of the accomplishments of her agency this year has been to help people who lose their job get a new one faster. “We started the year in January with the new re-employment case management system. And that was a process where we started contacting individuals who filed for unemployment, the very first week that they that they filed. So we’ve helped almost 30-thousand Iowans,” she says. Towsend says they can’t point to specific numbers yet, but believe it has helped the state recover from the post-pandemic workforce crisis

“It’s too early to tell you know what impact that’s had on on the number of weeks that people stay on unemployment,” Townsend says. “But we know anecdotally we’ve heard over and over again about how this has really helped people kind of expand their horizons in terms of their work search.” Unemployment did inch up slightly in the last four months — but Townsend says there’s an indicator that people are finding new jobs.

“What we’ve seen in 2022, is people are not staying on unemployment as long as they previously had — which which is reflected in the low amount of unemployment benefits that we’ve paid, even though the unemployment rate itself or I mean, the unemployment benefit itself goes up every year to keep up with inflation. The amount, the total amount is less so fewer people were drying it for shorter periods of time,” according to Townsend. She says the cut in the number of weeks people can draw unemployment benefits that started in July does not figure into the equation yet. Townsend says it looks like it looks by the end the year the state will pay about 260 million dollars in benefits, when that is about 400 million dollars.

“That’s a really good indication that we’re helping people get back to work faster, that they’re taking advantage of all the opportunities that had been available during this time where we’ve had, you know, high number of job openings and fewer people available to fill those jobs,” Townsend says. She says they will continue working in 2023 to get those who haven’t returned to work after dropping out of the job market during the pandemic back into jobs.