(Radio Iowa) – A plan emerging from the Iowa House would provide 750-thousand dollars in grants to help small meat lockers with fewer than 50 employees expand. In addition to the money, a bill that’s passed the House would set up a task force to study creation of an artisanal butchery program at a community college or Iowa State University. Representative Phil Thompson of Jefferson says the pandemic highlighted the need for small-scale, local meat processing.

“Many of us remember walking into our grocery stores, only to find empty meat cases,” Thompson says. “…We saw outbreaks and closures of some of our larger meatpacking plants and a supply chain that struggled to keep up with demand.” The proposed state grants could be used to buy more space or equipment, like refrigerators and freezers, for meat lockers. The money is included in a separate bill for the Iowa Economic Development Authority — the state agency that would hand out the grants.

Representative Chris Hall of Sioux City says there’s a definite need, since many Iowa meat lockers aren’t taking orders until 2022 or 2023. “Past that, I think that it speaks to a greater interest in our state and many other places the where people are looking to find a connection to local agriculture,” Hall says, “and to know where their food comes from.” Representative Chad Ingels, a farmer from Randalia, is the bill’s sponsor.

“It came from a lot of discussions with farmers that wanted more opportunities to sell directly to consumers and consumers that wanted more opportunities to buy directly from farmers,” Ingels says. “These conversations were happening before 2020. Last year just kind of brought it all to a head.”

Nebraska’s legislature is considering a different route to expanding consumer access to local protein. Nebraska’s bill would let consumers buy shares in live animals, the livestock would be slaughtered and processed by a custom butcher and the meat would not be subject to federal inspection.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa House has unanimously voted to let adults who were adopted get a copy of their original birth certificate that likely shows the names of their biological parents. Representative Marti Anderson of Des Moines says under current state law, that requires a court order.  “Today, about half of all states allow adult adoptees some form of access to their original birth certificate,” she says, “without the complexity of going to court.” Anderson says.

Anderson was 19 when she gave up a child for adoption in 1970. Anderson was only able to connect with her daughter in 2018 because each took an Ancestry-dot-com D-N-A test. “This bill is about the rights of a person…to find out about their ethnicity, medical history, family information and culture,” Anderson says. An original birth certificate may be the only piece of paper showing the NAME a child was given at birth as well as the actual DATE they were born. Anderson says some adoptive parents choose to list the adoption date as their child’s birthday.

If the bill becomes law, biological parents would fill out a form to indicate whether they’d like to be contacted by the child they’re giving up for adoption or if they’d like their names redacted from the birth certificate. Representative Brian Lohse of Bondurant says biological parents would be given medical history forms than an adoptee could get when they become an adult.

“So that they know what’s lurking in their genes,” Lohse says. If the bill clears the Senate and is signed into law by the governor, state officials would launch a public relations campaign to reach parents who have already given up a child for adoption — so they can fill out those forms, if they wish.

(Des Moines, IA) After an announcement Tuesdays morning from the Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) is recommending that all Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine administration in the state should halt until further guidance is issued. IDPH has communicated this guidance to local health officials and vaccine providers throughout the state.

The State is working with local public health and other vaccine providers to substitute Moderna and Pfizer vaccines where Johnson & Johnson has been allocated. IDPH was informed that the Johnson & Johnson allocation to the state will be suspended for the next two weeks. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine represents a relatively small percentage of the allocation Iowa has received to date, so at this time, the pause is not anticipated to dramatically slow the pace of vaccinations in the state.

If any Iowan has received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine within the last month and presents with any of the following symptoms, they should seek medical attention immediately either through their health care provider or urgent care/ER:

• Severe headache
• Leg pain
• Abdominal pain
• Shortness of breath

IDPH is not aware of any cases occurring among the Iowans who have received this vaccine.

The Red Oak Police Department reports no injuries resulted from a two-vehicle accident on Tuesday. Officers were called to the accident at the intersection of Joy Street and N 1st Street.

After investigation it was determined that a 2012 Chevy Impala, owned and operated by 88-year-old Joanne Vivian Wegler of Red Oak, was eastbound on Joy Street and failed to yield at the intersection with N 1st Street. The Impala struck a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am, owned and operated by 46-year-old Angela Sue Vanderhoof of Red Oak, broadside after being unable to brake in time. Wegler was cited for Failure to Yield and Vanderhoof was also cited for Failure to have Insurance.

Damage to the Pontiac was estimated at $4,500 and was considered a total loss. Damage to the Impala was estimated at $3,000.

Red Oak Police was assisted by Red Oak Rescue and Red Oak Fire at the scene.

(Radio Iowa) – A south-central Iowa man will serve 27 years in prison on child pornography charges. Forty-nine-year-old Ryan Ford of Centerville was sentenced in U-S District Court for production of child pornography and receipt of child pornography. Court information shows Ford secretly recorded minors in the shower in 2018 and distributed some of the images to others. In 2018 and 2019, investigators say he downloaded images of child porn.

Police used a search warrant and found 18-hundred images and 27 videos of child pornography on his cell phone.

The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports three arrests. On Tuesday (April 13), 48-year-old Yadira Valquier-Cruz, of Omaha, was arrested on I-29 at around 4-a.m., for OWI/1st offense. Bond was set at $1,000.

At around 2:15-a.m. on Monday, 31-year-old Melvin Stewart Alexander – who is Homeless- and 33-year-old Waymond Lee Foster, of Creston, were arrested at 195th Street at Highway 34 in Mills County, for Possession of a Controlled Substance. Alexander was additionally charged with being a Fugitive from Justice. He was being held without bond. Foster’s bond was set at $2,000.

Sheriff’s deputies in Page County, Monday, arrested 32-year-old Christopher Lee Gillette. He was taken into custody at the Pottawattamie County Jail on an active warrant for Failing to

Christopher Gillette

appear on a Theft in the 4th degree charge.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Joni Ernst is co-sponsoring legislation designed to foster more disclosure of the prices paid for cattle, as well as a bill to block federal agencies from promoting a “meatless” diet among employees. Ernst, a Republican who grew up on a farm near Red Oak, says these issues are important to her since her family raised hogs. “Here in Iowa, folks, we are all about the meat,” Ernst says. “Farming and ranching is not only critical to our jobs, our economy, our culture and our way of life here in Iowa, it’s also in our DNA.”

Ernst is co-sponsoring a bill that would give independent cattle producers more data about what meatpackers are paying for cattle. Since packers often buy directly from feedlots, cattle prices aren’t well represented in public sales. The bill would set up a system already used to help track hog prices. Ernst warns getting the bill through the Senate will be difficult. “What we’ll see is a little bit of pushback coming from different areas of the United States,” she says. “…You see those beef producers maybe in Texas or Oklahoma that have a different thought on how it should be handled.”

Ernst and a Kansas senator are co-sponsoring a bill that would ban federal agencies from excluding meat from the menu in government cafeterias and dining halls. “When I hear calls from the liberal left, everyone from out-of-touch politicians to Hollywood elite encouraging people to ban meat and the quality agriculture products we produce here in Iowa it makes me sizzle,” Ernst says.

Ernst is calling this bill the TASTEE Act, which stands for Telling Agencies to Stop Tweaking What Employees Eat Act. Ernst says it’s one way supporters of animal agriculture can start pushing back against the so-called Green New Deal and prevent another episode like the U-S-D-A newsletter reference to “meatless Mondays” that was retracted in 2012.

The Exira-EHK School Board, Monday evening approved the hiring of a Principal for the Pre-K through 5^th grade school.

That’s Exira-EHK Superintendent Trevor Miller. Mr. Miller said also the Exira-EHK Board voted to continue with the mask mandate through the end of the current school year.

The Exira-EHK Board also approved: filling a Librarian vacancy through an AEA Sharing Agreement; An Operational Sharing Agreement with IKM-Manning for a School Business Official (SBO). Kyle Wagner will be leaving this Friday and taking another H-R position. He’ll be replaced by Mallory Meyer, who currently serves as a shared SBO.

And, the Board approved continuing the Operational Sharing Agreement with IKM-Manning for Superintendent. Trevor Miller

A Technology agreement was also reached with IKM-Manning for Dan Spooner, who will do a 60/40 split, with 60% of his time at Exira-EHK and 40% at IKM-Manning. The current arrangement is 50-50. In other board meeting news, they approved a bid of $84,900 from TBB&M Construction for renovation of the staff restroom in the Exira building. There were three bids in all, for the project, which involves taking two small bathrooms and turning them into one Uni-Sex bathroom.

Miller says the facility hasn’t had any updates since the school was built in 1957. Work is expected to take place over the summer and be ready by next school year.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa reports 42-year-old Jacob Benjamin Tuttle, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced Monday in Council Bluffs U-S District Court, for being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm. He is required to serve 84 months in prison, plus 3 years of supervised release following his prison term. He’ll also have to pay a $100 special assessment to the Crime Victims Fund. Tuttle pleaded guilty to the offense on August 11, 2020.

On November 26, 2019 Tuttle was driving a stolen car on a rural two-lane highway in Mills County, when Tuttle saw a Sheriff’s patrol vehicle behind him. Tuttle accelerated to 100 mph
before he crashed the car on the side of the road and ran from the scene. He was arrested a short time later. On the front passenger seat of the stolen vehicle, officers found a Taurus .357 Magnum, along with 12 grams of methamphetamine. Tuttle is a convicted felon and drug user, therefore, prohibited from possessing firearms.

The investigation was conducted by the Mills County Sheriff’s Office. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.