(Radio Iowa) – Several speakers at a public hearing made pleas for additions to the tax plan House Republicans have proposed, while others blasted the bill’s central theme of dramatically reducing the personal income tax rate. J.D. Davis of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry praised elements of the House plan, but made the pitch for adding a corporate tax cut. “We just hope that all categories of businesses are considered in your final product,” Davis said.

Anna Gray is with the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. She urged inclusion of the sales tax maneuver Republicans in the SENATE have proposed that would finally put money into the Iowa Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Fund. “As you weigh various tax policies and ideas for making Iowa a competitive state for economic growth and workforce development, we encourage you to consider the trust fund and its potential and include it in your final tax bill,” Gray said.

A lobbyist for the Iowa Bankers Association asked House Republicans to include a tax cut for banks that’s in the Senate G-O-P tax plan. Raymond Phillips of Norwalk argued for a completely different approach. Phillips said his largest expense is the property tax on his home. “Decreasing the income taxes to 0% for everyone will only help the rich and provide nothing for the senior citizens and the middle class,” he said.

Anne Discher, of Common Good, Iowa told lawmakers Iowa’s tax system is already upside down, with low and moderate income Iowans paying more in state and local taxes than Iowans at the top of the income ladder do. “This bill will make Iowa’s already unfair tax system even more unfair,” Discher said.

The hearing ended after 22 minutes when the tenth and final person signed up to speak was done.

(Radio Iowa) – A bill that would limit participation in Iowa girls sports to athletes who have female marked on their birth certificate has cleared the House Education Committee. Representative Skyler Wheeler, a Republican from Orange City, says similar legislation has passed in other states. “The State of Iowa has a very strong interest to step up and defend girls sports and ensure that they have a level playing field,” Wheeler says, “and we’re not going to destroy their opportunity to compete at varsity sports, to get scholarships and to get the fame that they deserve.”

Representative Mary Mascher, a Democrat from Iowa City, says the legislature’s job is to protect transgender girls and make sure they’re treated fairly. “This bill creates a barrier for a small, small group of children who are already marginalized by society,” Mascher says. “…No child should face state-sanctioned bullying.”

Mascher and six other Democrats on the committee voted against the bill. All 14 Republicans present voted for it and the bill is now eligible for debate in the full House. Governor Reynolds called on the Republican-led legislature to take action on this issue last April. The executive director of Iowa Safe Schools says studies have shown no conclusive link between sex assigned at birth and sporting outcomes and the bill will put educators, school districts, and students in an impossible situation.

Cass County Wellness Coordinator Brigham Hoegh, Monday, reminds area residents QPR training program in suicide
prevention is being offered in Anita, Tuesday night. “Question. Persuade. Refer.” (QPR) is a program delivered by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach that teaches three simple steps to help save a life from suicide. QPR will be held Tuesday at the Anita Community Center (805 Main Street), from 6:00-7:30 PM. Cass County ISU Extension will be providing free pizza to attendees of the Anita event. The event is being hosted in partnership with Anita Public Library and Anita Healthy and Wellness Center.

Participants of in-person QPR sessions are encouraged to wear a face covering indoors, particularly if space is limited, crowds are large, or spaces are poorly ventilated.

Farmers and people from rural areas are at higher risk of death by suicide. Sue Riggs, a retired teacher from Atlantic married to a farmer, attended QPR training in Atlantic on February 14. Riggs commented, “The QPR program was really informative. I now know how important it is to ask someone if they are considering suicide and where to refer them for help.”

All QPR sessions in Cass County are being offered at no cost, thanks to a grant from the USDA-NIFA 2020-70028-32728 that provides this training for free for rural communities with large populations of farmers and agricultural related business. All adults in Cass County and surrounding areas are invited to attend a QPR program, especially those who work in agricultural areas, health care, mental health, government, schools, libraries, or anyone who has an interest in learning more about mental health and suicide prevention.

The next Question. Persuade. Refer. suicide prevention training in Cass County is in Griswold on Feb. 21st, from, 5:30 – 7:00 PM, at the Griswold Public Library (505 Main St., Griswold), and is being hosted in partnership with Griswold Public Library

Although not required, registration is appreciated. To register for a QPR session in Cass County visit www.extension.iastate.edu/cass/ or call Cass County ISU Extension at 712-243-1132.

(Radio Iowa) – House Republicans are working on a bill that proposes a new process to confirm applicants for food assistance or government health care coverage are Iowans who qualify for the benefits. Doug Struyk is a lobbyist for companies that provide this type of screening in other states and he says it’s beyond traditional questions, like “did you live in this zip code?” or “what’s your mother’s maiden name?”

“Fraudsters have become very good at accessing that type of information,” he says, “and what we found…during the pandemic was a group of very savvy tech folks who were able to crack through systems that relied exclusively on that type of screening mechanism.” The bill would require the Iowa Department of Human Services to perform more frequent financial cross-checks to confirm a person enrolled in government health care or food assistance programs remains eligible.

Andrea Dencklau is with Iowa ACEs 360, a group that does research into adverse childhood experiences. She says adults who qualify for Medicaid and children who qualify for the state-paid insurance through the Healthy and Well Kids program could lose coverage if they’re unable to come up with the monthly co-payments. “Not only will their health outcomes suffer, we will all bear the price,” she says. “Without health insurance, these individuals are more likely to delay necessary care and end up requiring more expensive treatment, which will fall on all providers as uncompensated care.”

Republican Representative Ann Meyer of Fort Dodge voted to advance the bill out of a House subcommittee. “We are providing the safety net that Iowans need, but we also want to protect the taxpayer dollar,” Meyer says. Senate Republicans have been working on similar proposals for the past few years, but none has advanced through the House.

(Radio Iowa) – The number of providers and people using the state’s medical-marijuana program increased last year as the state came out of the pandemic. Program Bureau Chief, Owen Parker, says the number of providers increased to 16-hundred in 2021. “And that was a 21 percent increase over 2020 — at the end of 2020 we had a little over 13-hundred providers,” Parker says. He says they started seeing the impact of the law that added more people to the list of those who can prescribe medical cannabis for patients.

He says 50 percent of the new prescribers were Advanced Registered Nurses, 40 percent were doctors and less than one percent were podiatrists. He says the number of people who got cards for medical marijuana increased to more than eight thousand. “During the pandemic due to numerous issues that we came up with solutions for, we had a little less than five thousand at the end of 2020. So we’ve seen almost a 60 percent increase in the total patient population since 2020 ended,” according to Parker. Parker says the age of those getting the products hasn’t changed dramatically.

“There’s always a concern about whose participating in the program. But at this point less than two percent of the population is under the age of 18,” he says, “And then, it’s really kind of broken down 50-50 between those under the age of 50 and those over the age of 50.” Parker says sales went up in 2021.

“We saw over six-point-two million dollars in sales — that’s a 76 percent increase over the three-point-five that we saw in the year before. We are seeing about 33-hundred average transactions per month, which when you compare year-end end 2020, is 36 percent more traffic,” according to Parker. He says the average transaction price stayed right about 150 dollars. Parker made his comments at the Board’s meeting last week.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Sheriff’s Office has released a report on arrests from over the past week:

On Feb. 9th, 28-year-old Donovan Charles Bruning, of Griswold, was arrested on an active warrant for Failure to Appear.  He was transported to the Cass County Jail and later released on bond; and, 28-year-old Robert Paul Joens, of Exira, was arrested on three active warrants for Violation of Probation. Joens remained in the Cass County Jail as of Monday.

On February 10th, 18-year-old Tamora Deion McGee, of Atlantic, was arrested on an active warrant for assault with intent to inflict serious injury.  She was released from custody the following day.

On the 11th, Cass County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested 26-year-old Dalton Eugene Christensen, of Atlantic, on 2 active warrants for Intimidation with a Dangerous Weapon, and Reckless Use of a Firearm.  Christensen was booked into the Cass County Jail and subsequently released on bond.

And, four people were arrested last Saturday, in Cass County, and later released:

• 25-year-old Lucas Lee Stone, of Atlantic, was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance.
• 42-year-old Nicholas Gene Paulsen, of Atlantic, was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.
• 29-year-old Stephen Edward Ross, of Atlantic, was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance.
• and, 20-year-old Mikayla Veronica Waldron, of Atlantic, was arrested on an active arrest warrant for Theft in the 5th Degree.

(Radio Iowa) – The League of Women Voters of Iowa led a coalition of groups that have collected five-thousand signatures on petitions asking the Republican-led legislature to repeal recent election law changes. The coalition is asking Republican lawmakers to restore a longer period of early voting and get rid of restrictions that limit who may help older Iowans cast an absentee ballot. The group cites data from low turn-out elections held in 2021 that indicate hundreds of Iowans who tried to vote early couldn’t get an absentee ballot in time and they warn thousands more will face those obstacles in the 2022 and 2024 elections.

The head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa says the coalition is on a moral mission to protect Iowans’ fundamental right to vote. Republican Governor Kim Reynolds has said the election law changes made a year ago give Iowans even greater confidence as they cast their ballots. During debate last year, Republican Senator Jim Carlin said the changes were made because many in the G-O-P believe the 2020 election was stolen from President Trump.

(Radio Iowa) – The chance of spring flooding in eastern Iowa is “near normal to below normal,” according to the first flood outlook from the National Weather Service in Davenport. Rich Kinney, the warning coordination meteorologist, says that doesn’t mean there won’t be any flooding along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Even though local snowpack is mostly melted, the snowpack in Minnesota hasn’t, and it’s storing an above-average amount of water.

“The rate of the snow melt, especially way up north in the upper reaches of the Mississippi River valley where there’s a lot more snow than there is down here,” Kinney says. “We’re also looking at additional snowfall or heavy spring rains.” From now through April, Kinney expects slightly above-normal precipitation. Another factor is — the ground is only frozen a few inches deep. That’ll allow melting snow and spring rain to be absorbed, instead of running off into local rivers.

“Our river levels are, for this time of year, running around normal to, in some places, a little bit below normal,” Kinney says. “So, we’ve got quite a bit of room in the rivers right now for storage for heavy precipitation.” At Lock and Dam 15 in the Quad Cities, the chance of the Mississippi River reaching flood stage is 51-percent, slightly lower than normal, and the chance it’ll reach major flood stage is 21-percent, also slightly lower than normal.

The weather service plans to begin offering in-person “spotter training” sessions soon, for the first time since early 2020. More than 4,000 people serve as spotters across 36 counties in the region.

(Greenfield, Iowa) – Adair County Sheriff Jeff Vandewater today (Monday), said there was just one arrest last week. 39-year-old Joshua William Cox, of Harlan, was pulled over by Adair Police on I-80 westbound, near mile marker 72. The traffic stop at around 7:15-p.m. was the result of a call about a vehicle unable to maintain its lanes, causing a dangerous situations for other motorists.

The subject vehicle, a 2016 Dodge RAM pickup, was located and stopped when the Adair Police Officer saw the pickup crossing the center and yellow lines on the road. During questioning of Cox, the Officer noticed a strong odor of alcoholic beverages, and observed multiple open beer cans in the cup holders.

When Cox refused to take the Standard Field Sobriety Tests, he was taken into custody and transported to the Adair County Sheriff’s Office, where he also refused implied consent. He was booked into the Adair County Jail for OWI/1st offense and Open Container-Driver. Cox was released later that night on a $1,000 bond.