(Radio Iowa) – The latest Iowa State University Extension survey showed the price of farmland was up 29 percent — but the landowner profile has not changed very much. I-S-U Professor Wendong Zhang oversees the survey. “When you are thinking about the general trends, they are still consistent in historical patterns where you see a minor dip in the share bought by farmers and from a 22 to 25 percent increase for investors. But still, investors are not in the dominant category,” Zhang says. He says the type of seller hasn’t changed very much either.

He says 55 percent of the sellers are still estate sales and the sales by retired farmers — which is slightly higher than last year. “Some that are encouraged by the high prices. Some are concerned by the potential tax changes,” he says. One thing hasn’t changed, Zhang says those who own farmland in Iowa keep it. “Regardless of who they are — they tend to hold onto the land for a long time. So, half the land in Iowa is owned by the same owner for over 20 years. So, farmers are hoping for the appreciation — especially given the current tax law — you don’t necessarily have to pay capital gains taxes,” according to Zhang. Inflation has been an issue that’s hit a lot of areas — but he says it’s not major for farmland.

“Iowa doesn’t necessarily see as much influence because we have restrictions on corporate land ownership. Illinois probably sees a little more of that inflation,” Zhang says.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Sheriff’s Office reports an Atlantic man was arrested Christmas Eve. Authorities say 31-year-old Bryan McVay was transported to the Cass County Jail where he was booked for OWI/1st offense, and held until later release on his own recognizance.

ADAIR COUNTY, Iowa – Officials with the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) are investigating an Officer-Involved shooting in Adair County. Authorities says at approximately 8:30 -p.m., Wednesday, a Stuart Police Officer attempted to stop a vehicle for a traffic violation.  The suspect failed to stop and a pursuit was initiated.  Several agencies to include the Stuart Police Department, Greenfield Police Department, Guthrie County Sheriff’s Office and the Adair County Sheriff’s Office were involved in the pursuit.

The pursuit ended in rural Adair County just north of 130th Street on Jordan Ave when the suspect’s vehicle abruptly turned around in the roadway.  A Stuart Police Officer was unable to stop and struck the suspect’s vehicle.  The suspect’s vehicle continued to travel a short distance and ultimately struck a Guthrie County deputy’s vehicle and came to a stop.  During this series of events an Adair County Deputy heard a gunshot from the suspect vehicle.  The Deputy exited his patrol car just as the suspect’s vehicle became disabled and observed the driver to be in possession of a handgun.  The Adair County Deputy did fire his service weapon and struck the suspect in both arms causing non-life threatening injuries.

Charles Bradshaw, II

The suspect was taken into custody. He was identified as 57-year-old Charles R. Bradshaw, II, of Jefferson, Iowa.   A handgun was recovered from the vehicle Bradshaw had been operating during the pursuit.  Bradshaw was transported to Methodist Hospital in Des Moines where he was treated for his injuries, and was released a short time later.  Bradshaw was then transported to the Adair County jail and charged with felon in possession of a firearm, felony eluding, and several traffic violations. None of the law enforcement officers were injured.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) was requested to investigate the Officer Involved Shooting.  This is an active ongoing investigation.  Once the investigation is complete it will be submitted to the Adair County Attorney’s Office for review.  As standard procedure, the Adair County Deputy who fired his service weapon has been placed on Administrative leave.  The Adair County Deputies name will not be released until he has been interviewed by the DCI.

Des Moines, Iowa – Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Thursday (Today) signed an extension to the proclamation relating to the weight limits and transportation of grain.  The proclamation is effective immediately and continues through January 29, 2022. It allows vehicles transporting corn, soybeans, hay, straw, silage and stover to be overweight (not exceeding 90,000 pounds gross weight) without a permit for the duration of this proclamation.

The proclamation applies to loads transported on all highways within Iowa (excluding the interstate system) and those which do not exceed a maximum of 90,000 pounds gross weight, do not exceed the maximum axle weight limit determined under the non-primary highway maximum gross weight table in section 321.463 (6)(b) of the Iowa Code by more than 12.5 percent, do not exceed the legal maximum axle weight limit of 20,000 pounds, and comply with posted limits on roads and bridges.

See the proclamation in its entirety, here.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – A public hearing was held this (Thursday) morning in Atlantic, with regard to proposed re-precincting (that is, setting the election precinct boundaries), based on the results of the 2020 Census. Setting the boundaries did not include any changes to where the polling places are, at this time. That is likely to happen later, and should only affect two rural areas. The reprecincting hearing occurred during a regular weekly meeting of the Cass County Board of Supervisors. Following the hearing, the three member Redistricting Commission approved their plan and the Supervisors followed suit.

Cass County Auditor Dale Sunderman…

Sunderman said there were only minor changes to the precinct map.

A hearing will be held to officially establish the election precincts on January 7^th.

The maps are available on the Cass County website Auditor’s page, under “Voting Information,” and as shown below.

Proposed Supervisor Districts

Atlantic Election Wards

Proposed precinct map

Election precinct information

If the Supervisors had failed to set the precincts, it would have been up to the Iowa Legislative Services Agency (LSA) to draw the lines.

In other business, the Cass County Supervisors approved a Class-C Beer Permit for Hansen Valley Oil (rural Atlantic), and acted on adopting the Cass County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan resolution. In his report to the Board, Cass County Engineer Trent Wolken said bridge number 208 over Indian Creek is now open with the installation completed on a box-culvert project.

The Board also passed a Resolution Authorizing the County to Enter into Settlement Agreements with McKesson Corporation, Cardinal Health, Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Janssen Pharmaceuitca, Inc., with regard to the Terms of the Iowa Opioid Allocation Memorandum of Understanding, and entry Into that Memorandum of Understanding.

And, the Board approved the Cass County Master Matrix Scoring and Recommendation for A-to-Z Feeders’ proposed cattle confinement barn, prior to hearing a monthly report from Cass County Mental Health/General Relief Coordinator Deb Schuler.

(Radio Iowa) – Travel in and out of the state has continued to recover from the pandemic shutdowns. Iowa D-O-T spokesperson, Stuart Anderson, recently told the Transportation Commission that air travel is still getting back to normal. “We are seeing passenger counts at our eight commercial service airports continuing at about that 85 percent level compared to 2019 levels,” Anderson says.

Anderson says it is uncertain what impact the latest COVID variants might have on those airline traffic levels. He says travel on the state roadways has bounced back and held. “We’ve been very steady right around that pre-pandemic level comparing our average traffic daily figures compared to 2019 levels to try to get to the pre-pandemic levels. Overall, we are really right at those pre-pandemic levels,” he says.

Anderson says the volume on the county system is a little above the pre-pandemic levels — while the traffic in cities is a little below those levels.

The 8:06-a.m. News from Ric Hanson.

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Area News from Ric Hanson.

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(Radio Iowa) – Weather observers are still trying to get a perspective on the intense storm system that blasted across Iowa earlier this month, the second derecho to hit us in as many years — which spun off a record number of tornadoes. State climatologist Justin Glisan says the storm was historic in many ways, like how the “moderate area risk” was issued for Iowa. “Moderate” may sound tame but that’s a Level Four warning out of five. “This was the first ‘moderate area’ put out by the Storm Prediction Center in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin during the month of December in history,” Glisan says. “This tells you how unstable the environment was. We had wind shear available, we had instability available, we had ample low level moisture, and all of the ingredients came together for a large-scale straight line wind and tornadic event.”

About half of the state was declared a disaster by the governor, and Glisan says damage was widespread from the multitude of tornadoes, the severe thunderstorms and the straight line winds, some of which had gusts that reached 80 to 90 miles an hour.  “We’d also had multiple reports of 70 mile-per-hour winds based on non-thunderstorm winds,” he says. “These are winds that are produced by the tight pressure gradient that the low pressure system was able to produce, given its proximity to a blocking high pressure system that was able to amp up our temperatures during the day, overnight on the 14th and into the 15th.”

Iowa cities from Sioux City all the way to Burlington reported record high temperatures during the day, most of them springlike upper 60s and lower 70s — unheard of for mid-December. Those temps quickly fell when the storm hit, dropping 30 to 40 degrees, helping to fuel the violent weather. A total of 43 tornadoes were reported in Iowa during this storm, and one death was attributed to the winds — a truck driver whose big rig was flipped into a Benton County ditch. Those 43 twisters set a single-day record for Iowa. At least seven tornadoes were also reported in Nebraska during the storm, and there was an exceptionally rare twister to our north. “We had the first tornado in Minnesota history in December,” Glisan says. “Given the large-scale nature of this outbreak, while one fatality is too much, it is good news that we were able to get the proper warnings up.”

More than 150-thousand Iowa homes lost power during the storm and it took several days to get them all back online. Like the first derecho that hit Iowa back on August 10th of 2020, Glisan says they’ll long be studying this second derecho from December 15th of 2021.

(Radio Iowa) – Items sitting on a work table in the vault at the State Historical Museum may help future generations learn about the pandemic.

The State Historical Museum collects all stories of Iowa history, knowing from our experience that this is a historic time that we’ve been in over the last two years and thinking back to other times that Iowa has been challenged with a health crisis,” museum curator Leo Landis says.

According to Landis, museum staff who put together a World War II in 2016 realized at the start of the pandemic they needed to start a collection. That’s because more than 700 soldiers at Camp Dodge died of the Spanish Flu in 2018, but there’s little in vault to visually illustrate what happened.

“Just thought to ourselves: ‘Wouldn’t it have been great to have a mask from 1918, from the flu pandemic?’ We don’t have that, so as we were moving through the Covid pandemic, we knew we needed to collect.”

The Humboldt County Hospital has donated materials, including personal protective equipment, and the University of Iowa has provided a vial of each of the three vaccines. Landis says that was a priority, because the museum vault does not have a vial of the groundbreaking polio vaccine.

“The promise of a vaccine was so big and, in fact, Sioux City is one of the first communities to get one of the first trials of vaccines as they had an outbreak in the 1950s,” Landis says, “so there’s an Iowa story connected to the national polio vaccine efforts.”

The Covid vaccine vials sitting in the museum’s vault may, in the future, help illustrate the story of the University of Iowa’s participation in the large scale, international clinical trial of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine.