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City of Exira issues mandatory water conservation notice

News

June 18th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

Last week, the Mayor of Audubon issued a Water Emergency in effect until September 1, 2021. Thursday, City officials in Exira issued a Mandatory Water Conservation Notice. The Regional Rural Water Association is asking citizens of Exira to abide by the following restrictions:

  • No outdoor watering or irrigation of any kind between 8-a.m. and 8-p.m. No watering or irrigation of lawns, whatsoever. Watering of flowers, vegetable gardens, trees or shrubs less than four-years old, and new seedlings, are permitted once per week only, with an application not to exceed one-inch.
  • No car washing, except at commercial establishments that provide car washing as their only means of income. Commercial car washes hours of operation are restricted to 8-a.m. to 8-p.m.
  • No water shall be used to fill private swimming and wading pools or similar articles.
  • Water may not be used to clean streets, driveways, sidewalks and other such surfaces.
  • For necessary agricultural and industrial water usages, such as filling spraying tanks, reducing flow rate, and filling over a longer period, including overnight, to reduce the instantaneous demand of the City of Exira’s system.
  • Water flow may be reduced or terminated as needed, to protect the system’s integrity, including to customers who are found to be not following the rules.

Fireworks warnings already going out

News

June 18th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa/KJAN) – Fireworks are now on sale in Iowa, mostly from tents, but just because you can buy the booming noisemakers doesn’t mean it’s okay to set them off. In May, the Atlantic City Council set July 2nd, 3rd and 4th, from Noon until 11-p.m. each day, as the dates and times for fireworks celebrations in advance of and on, Independence Day. State law says cities and counties cannot ban the sale of fireworks, but municipalities -can- forbid their use. Clinton Mayor Scott Maddasion has a reminder for residents of that eastern Iowa community. “I’ve already gotten a few emails about this, people are amping up for it,” Mayor Maddasion says. “The state of Iowa allows fireworks to be sold in the state of Iowa, but the discharge of fireworks in the city limits of Clinton is still illegal.”

Many Iowa communities have banned the use of fireworks by the general public, while still allowing professional displays. Since fireworks were legalized in Iowa, critics have bemoaned how contradictory the law appears — mandating that fireworks be legal to sell but then allowing cities to ban them from being used. “It is extremely difficult and the state legislature’s put us in that position and that’s their choice,” he says. “We’ve got some people in town that sell the fireworks and I’m sure they make good money off it and that’s good for them. I don’t want to hinder anybody’s business in that sense.”

Police in a number of Iowa cities have had a difficult time in past summers ticketing and stopping those who ignore the local ordinances and set off fireworks. Maddasion explains why it’s difficult to enforce. “It’s just like anything else, innocent until proven guilty and you have to be caught in the act to be prosecuted,” Maddasion says. “Please call the PD if someone is doing that. They’re going to do their best to not only monitor the fireworks stuff but monitor all the other things that they’re doing on a daily basis.” The mayor is urging all Iowans to be good neighbors, especially during the upcoming 4th of July weekend. “Please, please, please, let’s limit or eliminate completely the amount of fireworks that are going off,” he says. “There’s a lot of things that come into play. We’ve got veterans with PTSD and the explosions can cause issues there. We have a lot of other folks that just don’t like it, which is fine, too, so I can’t say it enough, please, don’t discharge fireworks.”

Fireworks are legal to sell in Iowa from permanent structures between June 1st and July 8th and from tents and other temporary structures from June 13th through July 8th. It’s also legal to sell them in the state during a short period around New Year’s Eve.

Tiny SW Iowa town hosts National Skillet Throwing contest this weekend

News

June 18th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – Not far from the birthplace of actor John Wayne, the tiny southwest Iowa community of Macksburg is hosting its annual National Skillet Throwing Competition this weekend. Organizer Becky Faust says they have a pile of steel skillets of various sizes from which contestants may choose their weapons. They have to hurl the skillet underhanded about 30 feet at the head of a defenseless dummy. “We have three dummies and we have two different sites, so there’s six dummies total, and you’ll have three chances to throw a skillet at a dummy and a total of three skillets per turn,” Faust says. “The goal is to knock the basketball off the dummy. That is the head.”

Skillet chuckers come from all across Iowa and multiple other states to participate. There are typically 50 or so five-member teams in the competition. Faust says there’s a definite skill to accurately throwing a skillet and she explains the rules.”There’s two different things. You want to have a direct hit,” Faust says. “A direct hit is any way that the skillet hits the basketball directly and knocks the head off. That’s worth three points. If you hit the dummy any other way and the ball falls off, or any other way the ball falls off, that is one point.”

Not unlike the Hog Calling Contest at the Iowa State Fair, this contest’s origins are somewhat dubious but remain rooted in tradition. “This is our 44th year of doing this,” Faust says. “It started when they were having a celebration in the town and the postmaster came up with the idea to do this and it’s been going ever since.” Each set of basketball-headed dummies is surrounded by a reinforced wire fence which is meant to keep stray skillets from braining bystanders. Faust says she’s unaware of any injuries during past contests. “If you’re up close to the competition, you’ve always got to be aware of your surroundings,” Faust says. “We try to get those fences high enough that any skillet should not be coming over the fence.”

The Madison County town, population 113, is holding a hot dog and hamburger social tonight (Friday), during which anyone can practice their skillet hurling skills. On Saturday, there will be a parade at 10 AM, followed by other events, including a pedal tractor pull, with the skillet throwing contest starting at noon.

On the web at macksburgskilletthrow.com

Red Oak woman arrested for assault

News

June 18th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

Red Oak Police report the arrest at around 8:40-p.m. Thursday, of 20-year-old Vanessa Michelle Jensen, of Red Oak. Jensen was taken into custody in the 400 block of E. Joy Street, on a charge of Simple Assault. At last report, she was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $300 bond.

Axne-sponsored proposals included in corporate accountability package

News

June 18th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – The U-S House has passed a proposal from Iowa Congresswoman Cindy Axne that would force big corporations to disclose if they’re outsourcing jobs and using so-called tax havens in other countries to avoid paying U.S. taxes. “Last year 55 profitable US corporations paid no federal corporate income taxes,” Axne says. “I can tell you that’s not what happened on Main Street back in my district in Iowa. They paid their taxes.” The plan would require corporations with shareholders to publicly disclose how many people it employs on a country-by-country basis.

Axne and others say it would show how big multinational corporations open a store front in a low-tax jurisdiction to avoid paying U-S taxes where all their sales and profits are made. “This cost the US more than $50 billion per year in taxes,” Axne says. “It hurts all of the businesses who are doing the right thing — those that are on Main Streret in all of our communities, including many small businesses across this country who don’t have a subsidiary in Barbados just to avoid taxes.” This attempt at revealing which corporations are using off-shore tax havens was included in a wide-ranging package that narrowly cleared the U.S. House this week.

Another Axne proposal was included that would require require public companies that are owned by investors to disclose more information about pay and benefits, training programs, workplace safety and how much turnover there is in the corporation’s workforce. Axne says stockholders deserve that information. “By the way, these are sets of data that are already being collected by most public companies,” Axne says. “The pandemic, though, has only driven home how important it is for companies to make sure that their workers stay safe and healthy for their company’s success. It’s obviously that companies with workers that are more engaged will do better, which is why investors want this information.”

Axne, a Democrat from West Des Moines, says Democrats from Virginia and Maryland are sponsoring companion legislation in the U.S. Senate.

State tax credit for volunteer firefighters raised from $100 to $250

News

June 17th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – A bill that became law this week increases the state tax credit for volunteer firefighters from 100 to 250 dollars. Another approved by the governor last week will, for the first time, let voters approve a property tax levy to support the operations of a local fire department. About 90 percent of the firefighters in Iowa are volunteers and Iowa Firefighters Association president Nick Riley of Traer says legislators recognized volunteer firefighters took on new risks during the pandemic as emergency responders, transporting Covid patients to hospitals.

“Their interest in us has greatly increased throughout the pandemic,” he says, “which was greatly, greatly appreciated by everyone.” Riley says the association is hoping to take another step in 2022 and get legislative approval of a pension fund that volunteer firefighters could contribute to. Riley says the Iowa Firefighters Association has found a financial institution that will manage it.

“We can sit down with some of the legislators that had some of those big questions of: How will it be run, how will it funded, what will a fire fighter at the end of his service — how can he get his money?” Riley, like many, has a family history in the profession. His dad was a firefighter for 33 years in Mount Pleasant. His brother served for 15 years and Riley has been a firefighter for the past 12 years. The Iowa Association of Firefighters represents 15-thousand volunteer and career firefighters.

Drought conditions worsen across Iowa

Ag/Outdoor, News, Weather

June 17th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – The new map from the U-S Drought Monitor shows worsening conditions across Iowa. Only five percent of the state is shown as having normal conditions, all in the southeast, while drought gained more ground practically everywhere else. Parts of eastern and far southwestern Iowa are in the abnormally dry category, but the majority of the state’s in drought.

A week ago, 56-percent of Iowa was in moderate to severe drought, now, it’s 76-percent. Severe drought covers about 40 of the state’s 99 counties, including virtually all of northern Iowa and much of the central region.

A heat advisory is posted for much of the state today (Thursday), as highs are forecast to reach the upper 90s to around 100 degrees, with heat indices in southwest Iowa climbing to 107.

Man injured in truck train accident near Le Mars

News

June 17th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – One person was injured in a truck-train accident in northwest Iowa. A semi with a gravel dump trailer collided with a Burlington Northern-Sante Fe train at about 1:15 p-m today (Thursday) at a crossing about three miles west of Le Mars. The semi was coming down a hill heading eastbound and the train was going northbound.

The driver was airlifted to a Sioux City hospital in serious condition. The Plymouth County Sheriff says the crossing signals were working at the time of the accident.

Reynolds signs ‘Back the Blue’ bill into law

News

June 17th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

[updated] (Radio Iowa) – Republican Governor Kim Reynolds has signed legislation that establishes tougher penalties for rioting and protests that block pedestrian or vehicle traffic. The law also provides new legal protection to police, so they cannot be sued for most on-duty actions. “Like so many Iowans, I was raised to be grateful to the heroes who patrol our streets at great personal risk and sacrifice and tragically this fundamental and wholesome part of America’s culture is now under vicious attack,” she said. “…Iowa’s law enforcement will always have my respect and I will always have their back.”

Republican legislature in other states have passed similar bills this year. Iowa’s new law makes rioting a felony and someone convicted of unlawful assembly could be sentenced to up to two years in prison. Reynolds says amid calls to “defund the police,” this bill takes just the opposite approach.  “Last summer when lawless mobs across the country co-opted peaceful protests to riot and loot, Iowa experienced its share of unrest,” Reynolds says. “…The public peace is too important and the safety of our officers too precious to tolerate destructive behavior.”

Nearly all Democrats in the legislature voted against the measure, arguing the penalties in the bill were too harsh and that the G-O-P had turned its back on racial justice efforts. Representative Ruth Ann Gaines of Des Moines, a member of the House Black Caucus, says the bill sends the wrong message to people of color and young people. “Iowa is beginning to be looked at around the country as a state that is going backwards,” Gaines says, “…sending out a message that Iowa is not a welcoming state.”

Representative Ross Wilburn of Ames, the first black Iowan to be chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, says the governor’s approval of this bill is a giant step backwards. “She gave into the prejudice within her own party,” Wilburn says, “and we want to live up to our civil rights history here in Iowa and be a role model for the rest of the country for meaningful change surrounding our criminal justice system.” Reynolds had asked the Republican-led legislature to include proposals to track data from traffic stops and ban racial profiling in the bill, but those were left out.

Reynolds says she will offer a stand-alone bill in 2022 to accomplish those goals. “The men and women of law enforcement would be the first to acknowledge we should never be afraid to talk about the ways to improve policing,” Reynolds said. “…There’s no contradiction between steadfast support for honorable and selfless police officers — the vast majority –= and a commitment to improving policing.” Democrats say they doubt Reynolds can convince her fellow Republicans to pass that bill.

Governors have 30 days after the legislature concludes to sign or veto bills. Reynolds is taking final action on a few remaining bills today (Thursday), including one that provides state funding for police department equipment.

Atlantic teachers/Superintendent visit workplaces to spread joy and happiness

News

June 17th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

[Updated] (Atlantic, Iowa)  – Teachers and staff with the Atlantic Community School District were out and about today (Thursday), dressed in orange t-shirts, spreading the advantage of joy, happiness and gratitude through the orange frog training method based around a book by Shawn Achor.

Ashley Mosier, Washington Kindergarten Teacher, said they braved the heat to spread some good vibes…

Mosier says “So many people in our school district and community are already doing amazing things, and we want to highlight those good things.” Mosier says “We are using small steps each day to make big positive changes for our students, our teachers, our district and our community. Being positive has proven to increase productivity and engagement, which leads to success, and success is exactly where Atlantic is headed. Choose to be happy and a part of the orange frog movement.”

Group selfie

Wendy Peterson, Washington Elementary Paraeducator, and others in the group – including Superintendent Steve Barber – also came out to the KJAN Studios to spread their messages.

To learn more about happiness in the workplace, look for iSparkHappiness on Facebook.

Phrases to make your co-worker’s day.