(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Fourth District Congressman Randy Feenstra, a Republican from Hull, says the United States has to take the lead in dealing with the Russian build-up of troops on the border with Ukraine. “This is a very serious situation, and in our country we’ve always done this through history, we have to show leadership, we’ve got to make sure our allies are with us in what we are doing. The bottom line is we have to understand what Russia wants to do,” Feenstra says.
Feenstra says Russia is interested in Ukraine’s resources.

“They are the breadbasket to that area, they grow a lot of soybeans and wheat and all this other stuff, they have a lot of precious minerals. So, obviously, Russia wants Ukraine. And we have to make sure that doesn’t happen and we have to do everything that we can in our leadership role to get our allies with us and to make sure that doesn’t happen,” according to Feenstra. Feenstra says the U-S has a lot of options to deal with Russia.

There’s a lot of sanctions we can do. We can put a tremendous amount of pressure when it comes to the financial side of this whole thing. Those are things that are all playing out right now — but again — we’ve got to show strength and leadership,” he says. Feenstra made his comments during a stop in Webster City.

(Adair/Casey, Iowa) – A four month hiring process to find the new Superintendent for the Adair-Casey/Guthrie Center School Districts has culminated with the announcement that Josh Rasmussen, of Atlantic, will be the new face and voice for the District. The Boards for the combined districts announced their selection of Rasmussen this (Friday) morning. Rasmussen is currently the Atlantic Middle School Principal. He will succeed Dennis McClain, who has served as AC/GC Superintendent since July 1st, 2019. He submitted his resignation to the joint school boards, in Oct. 2019, effective June 30, 2022.

Still frame image from a video of Rasmussen making his announcement.

The announcement was made on several social media formats, and included a video from Rasmussen, who introduced himself to those who perhaps aren’t as familiar with him as we are here in Atlantic.

Rasmussen left no doubt that he wants to hit the ground running, in getting ready to take the helm from Dennis McClain.

Josh Rassmussen was one of three finalists for the position. They others were Brett Abbotts, former assistant principal, athletic director, and special education director in the AHSTW Schools; and Jeremy Christiansen, activities director and activity transportation coordinator in the Fremont CSD.

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Josh Ramussen Bio:

Education   

Certificate of Advanced Studies (Superintendency) – Iowa State University
Masters of Education (Educational Administration) – Iowa State University
Bachelor of Arts (Business Education) – Buena Vista University, Storm Lake
High School Diploma- Irwin-Kirkman-Manilla CSD
Teaching/Administration

Middle School Principal- Atlantic CSD
Assistant Principal/Activities Director (Atlantic High School)- Atlantic CSD
9-12 Business Education Teacher/Coach- Atlantic CSD
7-12 Business Education Teacher/Coach- Sac City CSD

Personal
He ismarried to Melanie Rasmussen, Kindergarten Teacher at Washington Elementary, Atlantic CSD. The couple has two children, Haley a junior at Atlantic High School and Colton a 8th grader at Atlantic Middle School.

(Radio Iowa) – Senate Republican Leader Jack Whitver says the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the federal vaccine mandate for health care workers likely closed the door on efforts at the state level to counter that edict. “The question is what can the legislature do at the state level? These are federal laws and the preemption clause will override a lot of what we do,” Whitver says. Whitver says that means it will take an act of congress to override the Biden Administration’s order that health care workers get fully vaccinated against Covid. “It’s really an issue that needs to be solved at the federal level rather than at the state level,” Whitver says.

A group of House Republicans are working on a bill that in its present form would forbid employers from asking if workers are vaccinated. In October, the Iowa legislature passed a law that ensures health care workers may file for unemployment benefits if they’ve had a religious or medical exemption request denied by their employer. “We passed our bill during the special session, to try to address some of that, to make sure some of those exemptions are in place,” Whitver says, “but a lot of what we said is that the Supreme Court is going to have to decide a lot of this, and they have – for the most part, and have thrown out some of those mandates.”

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Biden Administration’s Covid vaccine mandate for private sector workers in businesses with 100 or more employees. Whitver made his comments during taping of “Iowa Press” which airs tonight (Friday) on Iowa P-B-S.

(Radio Iowa) – A member of the Iowa House is planning an event at the Capitol that may feature one of the country’s most outspoken and controversial critics of the Covid vaccine. Representative Jon Jacobsen, a Republican from Glenwood, has been working on a bill that would prevent employers from asking about an employee’s vaccination status and he hopes to have what he calls an evidentiary hearing on the legislation. “I have many physicians that want to testify. We might have Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. coming in to testify,” he says. “We are going to have a compendium of people in the health care professions, from the sciences.”

Kennedy — the nephew of President John F. Kennedy — founded a group that campaigns against vaccines in general. Some of Kennedy’s prominent relatives have publicly criticized him for spreading dangerous misinformation and Kennedy’s own wife publicly rebuked him this week for making a reference to Nazi Germany during an anti-vaccine mandate rally. Jacobson says the main aim of the bill he’s working on is to address privacy issues. “I am not an anti-vaxxer. This is not an anti-vax bill. Most of my family’s all vaccinated. We’ve been vaccinated since kids. My kids are all vaccinated,” Jacobsen says. “I’m going to be doing some work coming up for a U.S. governmental entity that will require that I’m vaxxed and boosted to the gills.”

Jacobsen says employers can make suggestions about the health of their employees, but he says asking about vaccinations is a violation of privacy. “Private medical data is sacrosanct,” he says. “What’s happened in this crisis is that medical data is the ‘coin of the realm’ that ultimately is used as the commodity to leverage against you in employment.”

Last October, the legislature passed a law letting Iowans file their own claims for religious or medical exemptions from Covid vaccination mandates in their workplace. A copy of the bill Jacobsen is working on is not publicly available.

(Greenfield, Iowa) – The Adair County Board of Supervisors held their weekly meeting at the Adair County Courthouse, this (Friday) morning, during which they acknowledged receipt of the 5^th Judicial District Report, and a Manure Management Plan update from Prestage Farms applicant Cory Polk. The Board passed a Resolution to extend the City of Stuart LOST/TIF ordinance, with no changes to the ordinance. And, in their COVID-19 discussion, Supervisor John Twombly announced he had tested positive for COVID, but was not experiencing any symptoms.

The Adair County Supervisors received a semi-annual report from County Treasurer Brenda Wallace…

Wallace said her office will have to reprint a section of their report due to an error, prior to publishing.

And, they heard from County Auditor Mandy Berg, who discussed an agreement for the combination of a rural township and City Precinct.

The Board approved the agreement as presented. Berg said also, the County received a report on the LSA Redistricting Plan, and some good news, with regard to the reprecincting plan the County filed.

At Berg’s request, the Board set Feb. 16^th at 9:15-a.m., as the date and time for a public hearing on the plan. In other business, County Engineer Nick Kauffman reported on various pavement, asphalt and/or granular surfacing projects**, a concrete box culvert project on Eureka Road, and a right-of-way contract.Bids on most of those projects will be let on Feb. 28^th. He also discussed his FY ’23 construction program.

The Board approved a “Morning Light Repower” Road Use Agreement (in the Canby area), which is an extension of the agreement that’s been in effect for the past three-years or so, and a longevity raise for a Secondary Roads Dept. Employee Ray Palmer.

The Supervisors finished their meeting with a Fiscal Year 2023 Work Session.

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** Airport Road Asphalt pavement; Iowa Street Extension, Lake View Drive & Adair/Cass County line Asphalt resurfacing projects; American Rescue Plan Act granular surfacing.

SIOUX CENTER – Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has announced $38 million through Iowa’s Water Infrastructure Fund (WIF) to support three water quality and infrastructure projects across the state.  The WIF grants are being awarded to three projects in western, central and eastern Iowa and include the creation of new water system infrastructure, expansion of current infrastructure, and dam mitigation efforts for safer water recreation.

Reynolds says the announcement “Demonstrates our commitment to water quality in Iowa. Our goal…” she says…”is to build and nurture our communities by investing in infrastructure that promotes healthy and welcoming areas to live, work, and raise a family.  Not only will these three grants enhance our state’s water infrastructure, but they will make significant contributions to economic development.”

In December, Gov. Reynolds announced a historic $100M investment in water infrastructure and water quality efforts for the State of Iowa aimed at reducing excess nutrients, improving public health, promoting reuse of water and wastewater, and providing significant economic benefits to communities and the state.  The grants announced today (Friday) are a part of that investment.

The awarded projects are listed below:

• Lewis & Clark Regional Water System – Sioux Center:
  Up to $12 million will be awarded for the expansion of the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System. A first-of-its-kind, tri-state drinking water system estimated to benefit 350,000 people living in northwest Iowa, southeast South Dakota and southwest Minnesota, the project broke ground in 2003. Nearly 20 years later, the system is 86% complete and is awaiting full completion with federal funds. This investment will significantly expand the system’s ability to provide an additional 15 million gallons of water per day to its member communities.
• Dyersville East Road Utilities Project – Dyersville:Up to $11 million will be awarded to the Dyersville East Road Utilities Project at the Field of Dreams site for water distribution and wastewater collection infrastructure. This project will serve 114,000 Iowans across two counties and create approximately 350 jobs.
• ICON Water Trails Project – Des Moines: Up to $15 million will be awarded to the Iowa Confluence (ICON) Water Trails Project in downtown Des Moines to mitigate the dam on Fleur Drive. In addition to removing safety hazards associated with the dam, the mitigation will allow Iowans to enjoy a river run experience on the Raccoon River and lay the groundwork for a recreational destination in the area. The project is expected to create more than 150 jobs and more than $100 million in increased local revenue.

Area and state News from Ric Hanson.

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(Des Moines, Iowa) – Southwest Iowa Republican Representative Tom Moore, from Griswold, says this third week of the legislative session saw a huge uptick in committee and sub-committee work. Moore, who represents District 21, says the Human Resources Committee…

• Passed three House Study Bills (HSB’s) he says will continue an attempt to put tools in the tool belt of child care providers by allowing the negotiating of pricing between CCA recipients and providers, increasing 2-year-old ratios by 1 child and 3-year-old ratios by 2 children thus providing more child care slots in Iowa, and allowing 16 and 17 year-olds to provide childcare for school-age children.
• House File 210, he says, allows for an individual on who is on a ventilator the “right-to-try” an off label use of a drug.

Moore said also, the week was packed full of Sub-committee meetings. Among the list of bills he worked on throughout week, was

• A bill for an act relating to the adoption and use of certain general permits issued by the department of natural resources.
• A bill for an act relating to the release of nursing facility reimbursement rates under the Medicaid program.
• A bill for an act relating to the membership, procedures, and functions of the Iowa council on homelessness.
• A bill for an act relating to the beginning date of the school calendar for school districts and accredited nonpublic schools.
• A bill for an act relating to the composition of a county zoning commission.

Moore says also, this week, he chaired a sub-committee for a bill (House File 656) that Moore has worked on for five years. The basic premise of this bill is that once a patient is stable on a medication their insurance company can’t switch them to a similar but often less expensive drug. This doesn’t happen often, he says, but when it does the outcome can have grave circumstances for the patient. The major issue comes from the insurance industry who says it hampers their ability to control costs. Moore says “For me it comes down to where our priorities lie, with the costs and profits of the insurance companies or the care of the individual patient.”

After working on this for so long, Moore says it was great to see House File 656 pass both sub-committee and the Human Resources committee unanimously. He said also, “It will be exciting to continue working on this as it moves to the House Floor and eventually through the Senate.”

Representative Moore can be reached for questions and comments at tom.moore@legis.iowa.gov and (712) 789-9954.

(Stuart, Iowa) – Officials with the Stuart Fire Department reported on a social media page, that just before 6:30-a.m. Tuesday, Stuart Fire crews were requested for a working residential structure fire at Diamondhead Lake. As crews arrived on scene flames and heavy smoke were visible from both the garage and house. No injuries were reported. Other crews assisting at the scene included Stuart rescue, Dexter Fire, and personnel from “The Cup on 2nd.” (Photo taken by a nearby home owner)

Via the Stuart F,D, Facebook page