(Clarinda, Iowa, 1/7/25) – Page County Attorney, Carl M. Sonksen, reports the following activities in the Iowa District Court for Page County for the week of December 23, 2024. The Honorable Richard H. Davidson, District Court Judge of the Fourth Judicial District presided. All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Steven James Baker, age 19, of Clarinda, Iowa, appeared by counsel and pled guilty to Possession of Controlled Substance – Marijuana. Baker was ordered to pay a fine of $420, surcharges, court costs and court-appointed attorney fees.

Rae Ann Huntley, age 48, of Shenandoah, Iowa, appeared by counsel and pled guilty to 2 counts of Unlawful Possession of a Prescription Drug. Huntley was sentenced to 90 days in jail, with all but 48 hours suspended on each charge. She was placed on probation for 9 months and ordered to complete a substance abuse evaluation. Huntley was also ordered to pay a fine of $430 on each charge, court costs and court-appointed attorney fees.

Curtis Andrew Sokolowski, age 19, of Clarinda, Iowa, appeared by counsel and pled guilty to Possession of Controlled Substance – Marijuana. He was ordered to pay a fine of $430, surcharges, court costs and court-appointed attorney fees.

(Radio Iowa) – At least half of the homes in Iowa have radon gas levels above the E-P-A’s action level according to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. Ben Huntley, the Environmental Health Specialist for Emmet County, says radon is a radioactive gas formed by the decay of uranium in the soil. “It’s invisible, tasteless and odorless. It works its way through the soil to the surface where it can permeate through gaps in the foundation or insulation of homes and then it becomes entrapped inside of them.” Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U-S.

“It’s the leading cause of cancer among non-smokers,” Huntley says, “which equates to over 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year due to radon exposure.” The rate of new cases of lung cancer IN IOWA is significantly higher than the national rate. According to the Iowa Cancer Registry, most counties in the United States have stable or declining rates of lung cancer, but in Greene, Clark, Appanoose, Van Buren, and Winnebago Counties in Iowa new lung cancer cases are still rising. “In Iowa here we are in what EPA calls ‘Zone 1’ for radon which has the highest potential to have a radon level of greater than 4p/CiL,” Huntley says. “p/Ci is a unit of measurement for radioactivity. The higher the number, the higher the radiation.” Huntley says if your home has high levels of radon, there are systems available to get the gas out.

“The primary one would be to use a vent pipe system and a fan,” Huntley says, “which would pull the radon from beneath the house and vent it out through the roof.” Starting this month — which is National Radon Action Month — the Iowa Department of Human Services and the American Lung Association are offering free radon test kits to Iowa residents while supplies last. Go to www.radioiowa.com to find a link to the American Lung Association’s website, which shows two types of test kits are available.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors held their regular weekly meeting this (Tuesday) morning. Barry Byers, with the Secondary Roads Department, spoke on behalf of Engineer Karen Albert, and provided a weekly update on department maintenance and activities.

West Central Community Action Program Director Wendy Mueller presented her annual report and request for funding, which is unchanged from last year.

Kathi Most with the Red Oak Library also spoke before the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors.

Most said the Red Oak Library held a record number of meetings (Civic groups and others) in 2024. Supervisor Bryant Amos had high praise for Kathi Most and the library staff.

In other business, the Board set the dates for FY26 Budget Work Sessions (beginning the week of Jan. 20^th), and they approved IRS Standard Mileage rates for 2025, of 67-cents per mile, retroactive to January 1^st. That’s unchanged from last year, and less than the proposed rate of 70-cents per mile. And, Auditor Jill Ozuna had some news for the Board, with regard to County Insurance rates.

The Board’s next regular meeting is Jan. 14^th at 9-a.m.

(Radio Iowa) – With Republicans holding the majority in the U-S Senate, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is again serving as senate president pro tem — making the 91-year-old senator third in the line of succession to become the nation’s commander-in-chief.  “When the subject comes up, I kind of smile, and this doesn’t mean I don’t take my job very seriously,” Grassley says. “If this happened, I would be acting president.” Grassley says he understands his responsibilities if something drastic were to happen. “But I’d be ready to serve,” Grassley says, “and it doesn’t weigh on me a whole lot.” Grassley emphasizes it’s highly unlikely he’d wind up as president.

“The issue always comes — well, if something happened to the president, the vice president and the speaker of the house, it’d almost have to happen at the same time for me to kick in,” Grassley says. “I always say: ‘Well, who would want to be president under those circumstances?'” The title of senate president pro tem goes to the longest-serving senator from the party that has a majority of seats in the Senate. Grassley’s been in the role before, in 2019 and 2020.

Sen. Grassley

“I’m glad to make Iowans, being president pro tem of the United States Senate, number one in the Senate,” Grassley said. “It puts Iowa in a good position to get what we want.” Before heading to Washington, Grassley served in the Iowa legislature. He was first elected to the Iowa House in 1958 and served 16 years. He won election the U.S. House in 1974 and served for six years, and has been a U.S. Senator since 1981.

(Radio Iowa) – John Deere has notified state officials it will lay off 75 workers from its Ottumwa plant next month. Last year, Deere offered early retirement to over 100 employees at the Ottumwa facility and, in November, Deere announced it would temporarily close the plant in December, due to reduced customer demand for its products. Hay balers and mowers have been produced in Ottumwa.

Deere is moving mower production from Ottumwa to Mexico. Monday was the last day of work for 80 employees at Deere’s Davenport facility and for 112 workers at Deere’s Waterloo factory where tractors are produced.

Deere executives have cited weak demand for farm equipment as the primary factor in several waves of layoffs over the past year.

(Anita, Iowa) – The CAM and Nodaway Valley School Districts are one-step closer to keeping their shared superintendent and services agreement. Monday night both district’s Boards of Education met at the CAM High School in Anita, and discussed the mutual sharing agreement currently in-place.

Both Boards previously met last November, after the Nodaway Valley School Board voted to terminate the contract of Superintendent Paul Croghan. Uncertainty followed as to whether or not the Districts would continue their sharing agreement.

During Monday night’s meeting, the Boards were of a consensus that the agreement would continue, minus the services of Paul Croghan, but there are also issues that need to be resolved, such as improved communications between the districts, and a defined percentage of each district’s involvement in the agreement.

The Nodaway Valley School Board will meet January 15th to interview Superintendent search firms. Following that, a joint school board meeting will be held January 22 in Massena, to either formalize a new contract for the district or dissolve the sharing agreement.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic School Board will hold a regularly scheduled session at the High School Media Center, beginning at 6:30-p.m., Wednesday (Jan. 8th). Action items on their agenda, include approving recommendations to hire: Heather Prall – Preschool Para; Gratt Reed – HS Girls Track Assistant Coach; and Amy Jessen – Nutrition Cook at Washington Elementary.

The School Board will also act on the purchase of a lawn mower, an SBRC application for At Risk/Dropout and Potential Dropout Prevention, in the amount of $568,285, and, the following agreements:

• Children’s Square and Heartland Therapeutic (Council Bluffs)
• Heartland Family Service (Omaha)
• Heartland School of Omaha.

The meeting can be viewed live through this YouTube link.

The next meeting of the Atlantic School Board is a Work Session January 22nd, in the Achievement Center Conference Room.

(Radio Iowa) – When the winter winds are howling, some Iowans take solace in dreaming of the coming warmth of spring and working in their green backyard gardens. Iowa State University Extension and Outreach is launching its free Home Gardening Webinar series this week. Alicia Herzog coordinates the master gardener program and says this year’s topics will include soil health, identifying edibles, and more. “Many of our master gardeners will use this webinar series for continuing education, but it’s also free and open to the public,” Herzog says, “so it’s a really great series for anyone who’s interested in gardening and horticulture and just wanting to have a better yard or lawn or grow better vegetables.” The first webinar is scheduled for Thursday night.

“This is a weekly series,” she says. “It goes for 10 weeks. It’s every Thursday, from January 9th through March 13th, and it’s at 6 PM from six to seven.” While there are a couple of online options, Herzog says the webinars will also be offered at many I-S-U extension offices throughout Iowa. “Some extension offices across the state will be offering live streaming in the office,” Herzog says. “So if people prefer to go in person, or maybe they don’t have internet at their house, or they just want to get out and socialize, they should call their extension office and double check with them, as not all extension offices will be offering it.”

There’s also the option of joining via computer using Zoom, or by going to the livestream on the extension’s Facebook page.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Travel Industry Partners is sending out its first scholarships to 21 tourism leaders in the state. The group’s executive director Chelsea Lerud says they are collaborating with the Iowa Tourism Office to encourage Iowa’s tourism professionals to attend regional and national industry conferences. “Getting them out to these national conferences to represent the state, to learn what other states are doing for programming, and bring those ideas back to the state, which will, in turn grow the offerings that we can here in Iowa,” she says. Lerud says the “Elevate Iowa” scholarships help with the cost of attending the conferences. “A lot of times the travel to these conferences is more expensive than the actual registration of the conference, so that can be a barrier for attendees,” Lerud says. “…The scholarship will support up to 60 percent of the individual’s cost to attend the conference. ”

Lerud says the scholarship recipients have several different conferences they plan to attend. “Two of our museum partners are attending the American Museum membership conference. So it’s the National Association for museums, and they’re just going to learn information about enhancing their museum membership programs,” she says. “Some are attending an event called the chief executive summit by sports E-T-A. Sports E-T-A is the National Sports Association, so destinations that host a lot of sporting events.” Others will attend the Upper Midwest Convention and Visitors Bureau conference. “That is a regional conference where Iowa falls eight states here in the Midwest. And that conference happens once a year just to learn best practices in kind of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, economic development, tourism, recruitment, space. And really collaboration with other destinations in the Midwest is really important at that conference,” she says.

Lerud says they want to keep getting out the word that Iowa is no longer just a flyover state. “We are a destination, and we want to make sure those visitors that are seeking destinations to go experience know that Iowa is an option for them. You know, in 2023 visitors spent over seven-point-three billion dollars in our state,” she says. The program gave out around half of its 40-thousand dollar allotment.

Here are some of the organizations which got money: Jewel Main Street, Discover Ames, Iowa Travel Industry Partners, Visit Quad Cities, Meet in Marshalltown, Villages of Van Buren, Cedar Rapids Tourism, Visit Quad Cities, Travel Dubuque, Waterloo Main Street, Driftless Area, Visit Fort Dodge, Explore Siouxland, Dubuque County Historical Society, Indian Creek Nature Center.