(Red Oak, Iowa) – An attempted traffic stop Saturday night in Montgomery County, resulted in a pursuit and arrest of a man from Clarinda. According to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were performing routine patrol on Highway 48 southbound at around 9-p.m., when a motorcycle approached them northbound. Deputies activated their in-car radar, and observed the motorcycle was traveling at 102 miles per hour. The Deputy activated their red light and siren, and made a U-turn to catch up with the cycle.

As they got behind the machine, they observed it had an Iowa license plate which came back to a gray, 2013 Harley Davidson. The cycle took off at a high rate of speed, leading deputies on a pursuit through Red Oak to Highway 71, where the motorcycle crashed. At that time, the operator, Jason Patrick Fahey, of Clarinda, was arrested and charged with Eluding. His bond was set at $2,000.

(Radio Iowa) – The top Democrat in the Iowa House says the State of Iowa wouldn’t have had a more than $1 billion surplus at the end of the last fiscal year in June, if it weren’t for federal pandemic relief. House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst is among the Democrats citing Biden’s signature on bills that did things like increase the federal child tax credit and extend Medicaid coverage to at least 75,000 more low-income Iowans. “Iowa’s economy is strong, in many ways, because of the work that President Biden has done to help Americans get out of the pandemic and help Iowa’s economy recover,” Konfrst says.

Republican Governor Kim Reynolds has said with a budget surplus of more than $1.24 billion, lawmakers should cut income taxes — with the long-term goal of completely eliminating the state income tax. Konfrst says Democrats will lobby for targeted tax relief.

“Certainly if there are tax cuts, they need to be going to working families,” she says. “We need to make sure that tax cuts aren’t, again, going to wealthy families or to corporations or special interests and I also need to acknowledge the fact that our schools have been underfunded for a long time. Iowa’s mental health system needs more funding and health care and prescription drug costs still hurt Iowa family budgets, so whatever we can do to alleviate that I think is a really good use of that money.”

Jennifer Konfrst

And Konfrst says some state agency budgets have been trimmed too far. “It takes a long time to get services from state agencies because they’ve been cut so much,” she says. As an example, Konfrst cites the Department of Human Services which does things like manage food stamps and Medicaid and investigate allegations of child abuse.

“This is not a criticism of the department. This is just that they’re understaffed and underworked,” Konfrst says. “We’ve seen this with Iowa Workforce Development. We’ve had people with unemployment challenges that they’ve not been able to get a call back. I had a constituent who didn’t receive his unemployment check during the pandemic for three months and that was not because somebody wasn’t doing their job, it’s just because there aren’t enough people to do the job.”

Konfrst made her comments during taping of the “Iowa Press” program which aired Friday night on Iowa PBS.

(Radio Iowa) – A federal judge is ordering a southern Iowa dog breeder to immediately have a veterinarian conduct a “head to tail” evaluation of every dog on the property after federal inspectors say they found dogs in danger of starvation and death.

Daniel Gingerich, who operates the Maple Hill kennel near Seymour, has been a USDA licensed dog breeder since 2019. Federal inspectors report dogs were being fed moldy, contaminated food and did not have access to water.

A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order, requiring Gingerich to immediately stop breeding, euthanizing or disposing of any dogs. Gingerich is being accused of evading federal oversight by hiding dogs from USDA inspectors. He’s also accused of committing at least 100 violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

The judge who issued the temporary order said the dogs were being subjected to “shockingly inadequate” care. No criminal charges have been filed against Gingerich. Radio Iowa has been unable to reach Gingerich for comment.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture also has a state inspection record on file.

(Wiota, Iowa) – Firefighters from Wiota and Anita were dispatched to a garage/shed fire at around 11:04-p.m., Saturday. The incident involved a structure in the 200 block of Pioneer, which is on the city’s northeast side. Atlantic Fire was requested for an extra tanker truck and manpower.

Additional details are currently not available.