A final reminder for those of you in the Griswold area: you have until Dec. 30^th to fill out an online Child Care Center Survey. (http:www.quia.com/sv/891022.html) Steve Baier, one of the organizers of the effort to get people participating in the survey, said families with young children in the Griswold area are being asked to fill-out the survey to gauge the need for child care. The initiative was made possible, thanks to a gift of $65,000 from the Noble Center Church, which is disbanding.

Those funds are being matched by Griswold Communications.

An Ad-Hoc committee was established to govern the project, which is expected to be run by a non-profit organization.

The survey may be answered anonymously, with names being optional. Baier says the information they’ve received so far from this survey and others, has been very useful.

He said about two-thirds of the respondants so far said they would use a non-profit run child care center, if it were offered. The deadline to fill-out the survey, which takes about 10-to 15-minutes, is December 30th. It asks you very basic questions, and some that are time-specific.

If you have questions or would like to complete a survey, but do not have internet access, call Steve or Barb Baier at 712-778-4452. The next step, after the results are compiled, is to find a facility to lease rather than build something new, with the hope of having ready by next summer, and a fee structure that would not be a burden on working families. In the meantime, organizers will be writing grant applications and looking for financial partners. They will also accept donations.

(Radio Iowa) — Federal operations in Iowa are scaling back services as a partial government shutdown continues. Those federal workers who are considered essential are still on the job, including law enforcement. National Monuments and wildlife refuges only have minimal staffing, but are open to visitors and hunters. Chuck Traxler is a regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “At most of our national wildlife refuges, we follow state hunting seasons, so if there is a legal hunting season going on and that refuge is open to that hunting, it’s open to the public to use,” Traxler says. “I would add, we do have law enforcement folks that are all on duty.”

Those federal facilities in Iowa have not been vacated, he assures. “There will be staff at every refuge, just doing the essential stuff to make sure public equipment is safe and secure,” Traxler says, “just to make sure in case something breaks or there’s any kind of emergency maintenance needed.”

The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch is closed due to the government shutdown, and National Weather Service offices in Iowa will keep forecasting, but social media updates are limited. Funding for parts of the federal government ran out at midnight Friday as President Donald Trump and members of Congress bicker over building a wall along the southern U-S border.