COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – Career education programs at Iowa Western Community College helped Richard Kleckner turn around his life after years living on the streets, abusing drugs and repeatedly getting trouble with the law. While locked up in Omaha, Kleckner decided in 2016 to stop abusing heroin and methamphetamine and instead pursue his high-school equivalence diploma. After his release, he moved to Council Bluffs and enrolled in HiSET classes through Iowa Western with financials support from IowaWORKS. “That’s how I got my foot in the door,” Kleckner said. “It gave me something to do. It got me out of the house. I felt active. I felt better for myself, and I really felt good when I passed my first test. That right there was a super huge boost to my ego and that’s when I felt like I could really do this.”

Richard Kleckner shows off the welding lab at Iowa Western Community College’s Kinney Hall in Council Bluffs on Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018. Kleckner took a welding class through the Education 2 Employment career preparatory program and now has a job as a welder in Omaha. (Photo by Scott Stewart/Iowa Western Community College)

Kleckner said his teachers were exceptionally supportive and the small classes make sure everyone gets the attention they need. The program offers an option for self-directed HiSET preparation, too, for those students not seeking a classroom experience. “It’s basically really like a step-to-step program,” Kleckner said. “It makes getting your HiSET easy. I came in thinking, ‘Man, this is going to be really hard.’ I dropped out of school in ninth grade. I don’t know if I can do this. But then it became something that was fun. It became something that interested me that I wanted to be a part of. It was really exciting, and then once I got it, I knew that I wasn’t the person that I was labeled as being at that point. I am still in awe at everything that I have done.”

After earning his diploma, Iowa Western’s Education 2 Employment program paid for Kleckner to enroll in a welding class at the college. It paid for his books, welding boots and all other costs associated with the course – including his American Welding Society qualification test. Within a month, he landed a job as a welder for an Omaha manufacturer. He now hopes to be a role model and to continue to give back to improve the lives of others struggling with substance abuse.

Police in Glenwood report four recent arrests. On Nov. 21st, 31-year old Jared Pomerenke and 34-year old Robyn Salmons, both of Glenwood, were arrested for Theft.  Bonds were set at $300 each. Both were later released for time served. On Nov. 22nd, 26-year old Jordon Williams, of Plattsmouth, NE., was arrested in Glenwood for OWI/1st offense. Williams posted a $1,000 bond, and was released. And, last Saturday, 35-year old Kristy Wilson, of Glenwood, was arrested for Serious Assault. She posted a $1,000 bond, and was released.

There were also two accidents in Glenwood over the weekend, one of which was attributed to road conditions. No one was injured.

Atlantic Parks and Recreation Dept. Director Seth Staashelm reports the roads inside Sunnyside Park are now closed for the season. The Park is still open to the public, but the roads are closed for the winter.

Officials with Harlan Municipal Utilities (HMU) report an equipment failure at around 9:30-a.m. Sunday, resulted in an electrical outage to parts of the community. HMU CEO Ken Weber said a middle phase jumper on a junction pole along the 69Kv (kilovolt) main line feeding Harlan, failed and dropped into the lower phase line causing a partial power outage. HMU linemen and a crew from Northern Iowa Power Company (NIPCO) were able to affect a temporary workaround to restore power.

Weber said today (Monday), that they are working with line crews from NIPCO to repair the jumper. During the repair, they hope to determine the cause of the failure and fix it so it doesn’t happen again. Power was restored to all customers by around 11:45-a.m., Sunday. The partial power condition damaged some electronic equipment on the HMU telecom service. Telecom technicians worked until early Sunday evening to replace, repair and restore cable TV, Internet and Telephone Services.

PIONEER, Iowa (AP) — A tiny city in northern Iowa is edging toward unincorporating as its population dwindles, but first it must figure out how to spend its healthy reserve fund. The Messenger reports that Pioneer City Clerk Janet Berte recently met with the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to discuss the formal process of unincorporating. Berte says the last census found that the city had a population of 23. Officials say that the city soon won’t be able to meet the official requirements of being a city as its citizens age.

Berte says one obstacle to unincorporating is the city’s good financials. She says most cities unincorporated when they run out of money, but Pioneer has about $150,000. Berte says the City Council doesn’t have a set timeline for unincorporating.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A state audit says the legislature, governor and Iowa Department of Human Services have failed to follow a state law that requires full quarterly financial reports on the state’s privatized Medicaid program. Auditor Mary Mosiman says in an audit released Monday that the state officials and lawmakers should have established a method to estimate program cost savings when they moved from state-managed Medicaid to a system managed by for-profit health care companies in 2016.

The state released widely varied estimates of savings last year ranging from $47 million to $235 million in the $5 billion program that oversees the health care program for poor and disabled Iowans. Mosiman estimates the state saved $126 million in fiscal year 2018 compared to what it would have spent under state-managed care.

Sheriff’s officials in Union County say The Whistle Stop, in Lorimor, reported that at around 8:51-p.m. November 21st, someone came in to the store and paid for $51.05 worth of product with a counterfeit $100 bill. The subject had left the store before the money was tested. No other information was available.

(Radio Iowa) — Work continues on one of the largest and most expensive road construction projects in Iowa that was delayed by a contractor mistake. What’s called a “flyover bridge” is being built where Interstate 35 meets U-S Highway 30 on the east side of Ames. Iowa Department of Transportation engineer Scott Dockstader says they already had several nighttime shutdowns on the I-35 and work involving Highway 30 is next.”We still have to do work over Highway 30 and connect up to the other abutment so we’ll have multiple U-S 30 night closures and beam settings,” Dockstader says.

The current clover-leaf interchange between U-S 30 and I-35 in Ames will be retired once a new bridge is completed. Dockstader says the new bridge is expected to make thing safer for drivers. “With this flyover we’re able to eliminate a lot of that merging/diverging movement, so in the future we won’t have people getting off at high speed trying to find a gap with that traffic merging onto the interstate from that loop,” according to Dockstader.

Dockstader says the project appears to be on-pace for a mid-summer opening of the new flyover bridge. The new bridge was supposed to be completed by the end of this year — but the work was delayed after it was discovered the Minnesota contractor made mistakes with the elevation of the piers and the anchor bolts that go into the piers weren’t positioned properly.

(Radio Iowa) — Iowa kids from Chariton to Washington to Davenport are getting an extra day of Thanksgiving vacation as many schools across the southeastern third of the state cancelled classes due to heavy snow. Sunday’s blizzard dumped six-to-12 inches of snow on much of the region, but meteorologist Brooke Hagenhoff, at the National Weather Service, says some areas got much more. “The highest report that we’ve gotten so far is 17 inches in Oskaloosa,” Hagenhoff says. “We also had 16 inches reported in Osceola and at University Park in Mahaska County.”

Knoxville reports 14 inches of snow, Muscatine and the Quad Cities both report 13 inches, Sigourney got a foot even, while Clarinda got almost 11 inches of snowfall. While it’s unclear if any records were set with the holiday weekend snowstorm, it left behind temperatures far below normal. “The stiff north winds yesterday helped usher in a lot of that colder weather and we’re looking for that to stick around at least through the middle to the end of the week,” Hagenhoff says. “The normal high for this time of year is 42 degrees. Yesterday we hit 33 and today we’re looking to stay right around 26.”

On the plus side, Hagenhoff says there shouldn’t be any more snow in Iowa anytime soon. “Not right now,” Hagenhoff says. “It’s a relatively active pattern so there may be chances for just light flurries around the state but nothing significant that we’re looking at right now.”  A woman answering the phone at the Mahaska County Roads Department in Oskaloosa said no one was available to comment on conditions there as everyone was out on snow plows — and many had been at it with only brief breaks for a solid 24 hours.

The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office reports a traffic stop Sunday afternoon resulted in a citation for a Griswold man. 27-year old Jonathan Christian Pilgreen was cited for Driving While Revoked. He was then released from the scene. At around 12:20-a.m., Sunday, a Pott. County Deputy was called to a residence in Council Bluffs, to check on the welfare of an individual. The deputy then determined that an assault had taken place. 45-year old Shawn Craig Gappa, of Council Bluffs, was arrested for Domestic Assault, with regard to an incident involving a 15-year old male. Gappa was transported to the Pott. County Jail.

Friday evening, a Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Deputy was on patrol in the area of N.16th Street and Nash Boulevard, when he saw a Ford F-250 pickup occupied by an adult male and female. A check of the license plate revealed the male owner, 37-year old Danny Davidson, of Council Bluffs, was wanted on a warrant for Conspiracy to Commit a Forcible Felony, and Theft in the 1st Degree. A traffic stop on the vehicle was initiated, and the warrant confirmed. Davidson was taken into custody on the warrant and transported to the Pott. County Jail, where bond was set at $10,000. His passenger was authorized to remove the vehicle from the scene.

And, at around 4-a.m. Wednesday, an investigation into a property damage accident in the 24,000 block of Pioneer Trail, resulted in the arrested of 24-year old Sabriena R. Bruce, of Omaha. The woman was charged with OWI/1st offense, and transported to the Pott. County Jail.