(Omaha, NE) – The Community Foundations of Southwest Iowa, which includes the community foundations in Audubon, Cass, Crawford, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Montgomery, Page and Shelby counties, is pleased to announce that grant applications are now being accepted from organizations providing charitable services in southwest Iowa. As part of this spring grant cycle, over $1.2 million will be available to support nonprofit organizations and community projects in the nine counties. The deadline to apply for funds through the online application process is February 1, 2026.

Beginning December 15, application details, a fact sheet, and a link to the application form can be found here or by logging in on omahafoundation.org. Applications will only be accepted through the online system.

The Community Foundations of Southwest Iowa, an affiliate of the Omaha Community Foundation, serves to benefit the nine-county region by supporting community needs in the areas of civic engagement, culture, health, education, and social services. The objective of the grant program is to fund projects that will have a lasting impact in our communities.

Only organizations providing services in the nine-county region are eligible to apply. They must be able to demonstrate broad community/county support and be an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) public charity, a local municipality, or a fiscally sponsored project.

This cycle of grants is made possible through the State of Iowa County Endowment Fund Program. Created in 2004 by the Iowa Legislature, the program is funded by a percentage of the state’s commercial gaming tax revenue.

Please contact Southwest Iowa Foundations Advisor Sarah Beth Ray at sarahbeth@omahafoundation.org or 402-342-3458 with application-related questions. All completed grant applications will be considered at the March advisory committee meetings, with applicants being notified of funding decisions by the end of March.

For general questions about the Community Foundations of Southwest Iowa and the County Endowment Fund Program, please contact Southwest Iowa Foundations Director Sunni Kamp at sunni@omahafoundation.org or 402-933-4188.

(Creston, IA) – A woman from Union County was injured during a collision this (Tuesday) morning, in Creston. The Creston Police Department reports 44-year-old Kristi Lynn Wieland, of Creston, suffered suspected minor injuries, after the SUV she was driving was struck by pickup truck, being driven by 33-year-old Corina Jean Buchanan, also of Creston. Buchanan was not hurt.

Police say the accident happened at around 10:07-a.m., when Buchanan failed to stop at the intersection of Irving and Elm Streets. Buchanan was traveling east on Irving when he pickup hit the SUV, which was traveling north on Elm Street.

Police cited Corina Buchanan for Failure to obey a stop sign and yield the right of way. Damage from the collision amounted to a police estimated $9,000 altogether.  (Photos by Chuck Spindler with the Creston Fire Dept., via Facebook)

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is waiting to see the results of an 11th hour meeting Monday night between a bipartisan group of about two dozen of his Senate colleagues, who were working to create their own version of a health care bill. “I think it’s very important that they try to reach an agreement before the end of the year, before big increases in health insurance kick in,” Grassley says, “and I hope it has the reforms in it.” There are widespread reports of Iowans who will face a quadrupling of their monthly health insurance premiums unless reforms pass quickly.

Grassley, a Republican, says in order for him to back the plan, it will have to include an income eligibility cap and efforts to prevent fraud. “People making as much as $600,000 a year, and we have at least one example of that, aren’t getting subsidized for their health insurance,” Grassley says. “People that are on both Obamacare and Medicaid, and that goes into a few million that fall into that category.”

For months, Democrats have pushed for an extension of the tax credits to people who use the Affordable Care Act marketplace, while Republicans have resisted saying the current plan is far too expensive and filled with loopholes. “If we’re going to get an agreement, some of those frauds and some of that duplication must be taken out,” Grassley says, “and it will be taken out because it’s so obvious.”

While the A-C-A subsidies will expire at month’s end, lawmakers are only scheduled to work through the end of this week before they recess for the year.

OMAHA, Neb. — A man from Nebraska will be sentenced in February, after being found guilty by a jury, of 2nd Degree Murder in connection with the death of a man in Carter Lake, IA. KETV in Omaha reports 29-year-old Brandon Mikesh was also found guilty charges that include Use of a Firearm, Possession of a Firearm by a Prohibited Person, Tampering, and Theft by receiving stolen property, in connection with the death of 59-year-old Bernard Leonard, May 17, 2024.

Officers responded at around 7:50-p.m. to the scene near Ninth Street and Carter Lake Boulevard for initial reports of a motorcycle crash, but investigators later found a man down with a gunshot wound, authorities said. Leonard was unresponsive near his motorcycle. Prosecutors said that Omaha police officers traced Mikesh using surveillance video.

He allegedly lit a stolen car on fire in Hummel Park that was seen on that surveillance, and cellphone location data put him in both places, according to prosecutors.

Mikesh is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 10th.

(Radio Iowa) – The planned implosion of the Mississippi River Bridge at Lansing has been pushed back from this Thursday to Friday. D-O-T Engineer Clayton Burke says the schedule required a change.  “We had some coordination issues between some different stakeholders, so it just didn’t work out to get that Thursday, but Friday was a much better day for everybody,” he says. The plan is to use explosives to bring down the metal portions of the bridge now that the concrete deck has been removed. Burke says weather is a big issue, but there is a 90-95 percent chance the implosion will happen Friday.

“The only thing that would that would stop it is if that rain comes in Thursday night and it freezes hard on the electronics out on the bridge that are controlling the explosives. If if that becomes an issue, then they would delay it a day until they can get it figured out and get things unfrozen and ready for demolition,” Burke says. The wind can’t be too heavy for things to work as planned.”The last thing they do is they cut the wind bracing on the bottom of the bridge, which significantly reduces its capacity to resist wind. So they do that when they know it’s not going to be windy and then after they cut that they have to drop it as soon as they can,” he says. “So that’s a big concern is. As soon as they cut that wind bracing it’s got to happen within the next couple days.”

Burke says the car ferry service which transports vehicles across the river will be closed between Thursday night and Monday morning to allow for the implosion.

(Atlantic, IA) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors held their regular Board meeting this (Tuesday) morning, during which they held a public hearing, with regard to requested zoning changes for a property at 59708 Yankton Road from Suburban Residential to General Agricultural. Zoning Commissioner Mike Kennon said at the Cass County Planning and Zoning Commission hearings, no comments were received with regard to the proposed change. After the public hearing was closed, the Supervisors voted to approve the request as presented. A second request from the owner of a property on Boston Road, was withdrawn from consideration by the owner, prior to this (Tuesday) morning’s meeting.

The Supervisors discussed a report from the Cass EMS Advisory Council’s annual report, as it pertains to funding recommendations. Supervisor’s Board Chair Steve Baier…

During the Advisory’s Council’s recent meeting, it was noted there were no public comments on the proposed funding. Supervisor Steve Green..

Still frame image from the BOS meeting 12-16-25 via Zoom Workplace

After about four-months of discussion and exploration of the options, the Supervisors approved a two-year lease agreement with Zion Integrated Behavioral Health Services. Supervisor Mark O’Brien…

Chair Steve Baier asked Zion BHS CEO Billie Butler, how many clients would be served at the facility, at the onset.

The Board approved the lease as presented, with Supervisor Bernard Pettinger abstaining due to a conflict of interest. Zion Integrated Behavioral Health Services, Inc. is a nonprofit organization established in 1973 in southwest Iowa to provide substance use disorder treatment and related services in Adair, Cass, Dallas, Fremont, Montgomery, and Page counties.

In other business the Cass County Supervisors approved a Cass County [employees] Health Insurance Rates Policy, designating participation and non-participation rates for Jan. 1, 2027-through Dec. 31, 2027, based on wellness plan participation in 2026. The Board approved also, a Calendar Year 2026 ISAC Wellness Agreement. And, they received a regular report from Cass County Engineer Trent Wolken.

(Radio Iowa) – State officials should be done by next week with their analysis of a northwest Iowa city’s newly-combined request for FEMA funding to buy 150 homes hit by flooding 18 months ago. Tom Van Maanen, the city administrator in Rock Valley, says the lives of many residents remain on hold, waiting to learn if their property qualifies for a buyout. “The purpose of the end of the year update, where things are currently sitting, the program’s still moving forward,” Van Maanen says. “It’s been disappointingly slow.” State officials determined Rock Valley’s original project that included 122 properties would not score high enough on FEMA’s cost-benefit analysis to qualify for federal funding.

Twenty-eight other flooded homes in Rock Valley that were part of a separate buy-out request are being folded into one application to FEMA for a total of 150 properties. Van Maanen says FEMA requires layers of technical review of each property and once state officials determine the score for the overall project is high enough, Rock Valley will submit its updated request to FEMA. “When this project is finally handed back to us, we’re poised to hit the ground the running and move this thing along very fast and get the people the help they need,” Van Maanen said. The goal of FEMA’s buy-out program for flooded properties is to reduce future flooding risks.

Van Maanen says it’s been frustrating to navigate through a grant program that does not have deadlines. “Even if you give a person a date that seems too far out, at least it would be a date, but that is not how this process works with FEMA,” Van Maanen said. “It is at their schedule, but we know we’re close. We’re really at the final steps of it, but unfortunately that doesn’t translate into them giving us a hard date when we’ll know.”

If state officials determine the cost-benefit score for buying-out all 150 properties still would fall below FEMA’s requirements, Van Maanen says the state will work with Rock Valley officials to identify which properties may need to be removed from the application to ensure that the remaining properties can be approved.

(Radio Iowa) – In recent years, Iowans have dealt with deadly tornadoes and historic flooding, but the biggest disaster for the Iowa chapter of the American Red Cross during 2025 has been house fires. Josh Murray is spokesman for the agency in Iowa and says fires are breaking out somewhere in the state almost daily, sometimes two a day, and it only gets worse during the winter. “So far in 2025, we’ve responded to just about 600 home fires. That’s affecting more than 2,000 people,” Murray says. “We’re thankful to our volunteers who get out there and help those people, whether it’s finding them some temporary accommodations, giving them some blankets and snacks, something to take care of them, trying to help them as they sit there and sift through and figure out what their next steps are.”

Murray says Red Cross home fire responses spike nearly 20-percent nationwide during the holidays, when families face increased risks of fire. “That continues to be where we do see most of our time spent in the disaster response world, it’s those home fires that are happening every day, and not just single home fires, apartment fires happen, too,” Murray says. “This is that time of year when people are inside more, they’re cooking more, they’re using heating supplies more, they’re using space heaters or starting up their fireplaces more. That’s when we oftentimes see that pickup.” In an effort to prevent more home fires, the agency installed more than 16-hundred free smoke alarms in Iowa this year, and checked the batteries in hundreds of existing smoke alarms.

KJAN file photo

“People didn’t know they didn’t have them or, ‘I have them, they’re there,’ but then when we went and checked them, they didn’t work,” Murray says. “We want to make sure we are able to have those, that you have working smoke alarms. Those are really lifesavers — if they work. We want to make sure we have those available and anybody who needs it or wants us to check it, go to redcross.org, find out how you can have someone come out and help you with that.”

This holiday season, Murray urges Iowans to visit redcross-dot-org to make a financial donation — or to give back through volunteering.

(Griswold, IA) – The Griswold School Board continued discussion Monday evening (Dec. 15th), with the possibility of a four-day school week. Superintendent Dave Henrichs told KJAN News the Board heard from a committee selected to explore the proposal.

Henrichs said it was difficult for the committee to respond to all of the Board’s questions.

At the end of lengthy discussion, no action was taken, because the Board wants more, in-depth research and answers.

Until the stakeholders have more of a concrete idea on what the schedule of a four-day week would look like, it’s hard for them to say whether they would be in-favor of it or not. Dave Henrichs said what it comes down to, is that the likelihood of a four-day school week is becoming less and less of a possibility right now, and it would most likely not be in the picture for the 2026-27 school year.

In other business, the Griswold School Board elected new officers for the 2025-26 school year.

Superintendent Dave Henrichs said two members of the 2024-25 school board who chose not to run for re-election this past November.

The board welcomed two new members and a returning board member, during their meeting, Monday evening.