(Radio Iowa) – The University of Iowa is joining 15 of the nation’s most prominent universities in a new effort to help students from rural areas enroll — and succeed — in college. Brent Gage, in the U-I’s enrollment management office, says the STARS College Network, STARS for Small-Town And Rural Students, will strive to create new pathways to higher education for students who might not otherwise recognize the full range of opportunities available to them.

Gage says, “It brings some of the nation’s top universities together to provide a place for students from rural communities to learn, how does the admissions process work and how can I dream a big dream about maybe going to an institution that has a very complex and intricate admissions process?” The network includes Brown University, Cal Tech, U-S-C, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Columbia, Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Gage says the nationwide program is designed to empower students to find the best institution for them, whether or not they ultimately choose to enroll at Iowa. “This effort is really to provide a free resource to say, ‘Hey, we’re here to help. What questions do you have and how can we help guide you through that process?'” Gage says. “So, not only can a student from California work with the network to come and study at the University of Iowa, but if a student from a small town in Iowa always dreamed of going to MIT, this network can help explain how to get there.”

The U-I will be working with guidance counselors, principals and other administrators in high schools across Iowa to get the word out. Gage says it’s the university’s mission to open new doors for students throughout the state. “For a lot of students, they just don’t have the resources to be able to crack the code on how this works,” Gage says. “This is a benefit for us because Iowa is going to be exposed to students from all over the country that maybe didn’t know a lot about our great institution, while learning about all of these other places that are providing these resources and support.”

One element of the program will bring students from rural communities to campus over summer break to help them prepare academically and for college life. All programming is free to students who register with STARS. Learn more at: starscollegenetwork.org.

(Radio Iowa) – House Democrats are proposing a cap on the price of insulin, a freeze on tuition rates at community colleges and the three state universities and several other policies they say would lower costs for Iowans. Jennifer Konfrst, a Democrat from Windsor Heights, is the House Minority Leader.

“We are heading into budget season here at the legislature,” she says, “and now is the perfect time to talk about ways that we can help Iowans’ budgets at home while we’re working on the state budget.” Republicans hold a majority of seats in the House and Senate and control what gets debated and passed into law Konfrst says Democrats are hoping to work with Republicans on property tax relief, but they also hope to convince the G-O-P to take more steps to promote construction of affordable housing. House Democrats also propose a new state tax credit for child care costs.

“While we recognize the state legislature can’t control all the ups and downs of the national economy, we can take action to help lower costs for Iowa families and reduce the living expenses of everyday Iowans,” Konfrst says. Representative Molly Buck of Ankeny says another proposal from House Democrats would let the state labor commissioner investigate businesses accused of withholding wages, even if a formal complaint hasn’t been filed against the business.

“One in every seven workers in Iowa are shorted an average of $300 per week,” Buck says. That figure comes from a report issued last fall by Common Good Iowa, a research and advocacy group. The state’s Workforce Development agency is currently using a federal grant to investigate businesses that may be mis-classifying employees as independent contractors in order to avoid payroll taxes and the costs of employee benefits.

Atlantic, IA – Officials with SHIFT ATL, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, issued a public statement following Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Atlantic City Council, with regard to fundraising for the Splashpad Project. The statement reads…

“We are very grateful for the decision made this evening by the Atlantic City Council to allow the Splash Pad fundraising committee to act within their roles at full capacity to fundraise and move forward on this project, just like other community amenities that started as grassroots fundraising efforts within our community and like we see in other progressive cities.

Although we did not feel it was necessary to speak on our own behalf at the council meeting after this decision was made, we still need to clarify a few points that have recently been publicly stated in regard to our organization.

Our mission, vision and community commitment was called into question in March during a public meeting stating that our mission was focused on “housing”. Our mission, vision and “who we are” is, and always has been directed toward community betterment for Atlantic. Our mission, vision and who we are, is the same today as it was at our inception in 2019, with overall community at the forefront.

Vision: To SHIFT the direction of Atlantic’s social and economic development opportunities by leveraging partnerships and strengthening social bonds within the community.
Mission: To revitalize Atlantic through projects, services and programs that will enhance the community and foster a sense of development and growth.

Who we are: SHIFT ATL was officially born in June 2019 by a group of young(er) professionals who believe in creating a positive “shift” for the Atlantic community. We aim to be a development catalyst organization by identifying the needs and wants of residents, and creating an actionable plan to move forward. We also serve as a conduit and connector for those that have a passion project but not necessarily the means or backing to get started. Getting the right people and
pieces in place to support new and expanding businesses, organizations and projects is at the heart of how we operate.

We also wanted to address the comments sent to the media (in regards to our proposed partnership agreement with the City for the Splash Pad project) that stated the City’s local auditor raised multiple questions, one in specific stating “the biggest concern of the Auditor’s according to John Lund, is that SHIFT is an unaudited organization. While they do have a CPA, they are still unaudited.”

We contacted the local Auditor to confirm the listed concerns said to be raised by them, most specifically the above mentioned statement, and they stated that is NOT the position of the Auditor and/or their office and that they did NOT make this comment. SHIFT ATL would be a private organization making a donation to the splash pad project, and therefore, the City is not responsible for the records of our organization, nor any other person, business or organization
looking to make a donation for the splash pad.

SHIFT ATL whole-heartedly supports this project and the fundraising/Splash Pad committee, and we will continue to be advocates and supporters of this committee as the project moves forward. We wish the fundraising committee and the City the best as they continue to navigate the undertaking of funding the splash pad project. We remain committed to supporting their efforts.

Lastly, we would like to add specific context and clarity to remarks made in the aforementioned press release from Monday about our nonprofit and how we are audited. The IRS heavily scrutinizes organizations with a tax exempt status, as they rightfully should. Since our inception, all required quarterly reports and annual taxes have been submitted on
time and with the help of Rush CPA, an outstanding local accounting firm. The published concerns about SHIFT ATL being an “unaudited” organization could be perceived as extremely derogatory to someone not familiar with accounting practices for a 501(c)3. Integrity and financial transparency create the foundation in which we have built this non-profit, and we are proud of the fact that the IRS sees nothing in our financial reporting to flag an audit.

All of Shift ATL’s annual reports are accessible via our website and our financial statements or balance sheets are available upon request at shiftatl.org or shiftatlantic@gmail.com. We encourage anyone wanting to know more about what we do and how we utilize our resources, to please reach out!”

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Iowa Department of Public Safety reports that on Tuesday, April 4, 2023, at 10:16 p.m., officers with the Oskaloosa Police Department were dispatched to 709 D Avenue West on the report of a shooting. Responding officers found an adult male with a gunshot wound. Officers and EMS rendered aid at the scene. The man was transported to a Des Moines area hospital, where he remains.

As a result of the overnight investigation, officers with the Oskaloosa Police Department and agents with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation are seeking help from the public to locate 22-year-old Gavin Jones. He is a white male, 6 feet 3 inches tall, weighing 180 pounds, with brown hair. Jones is currently wanted on the charge of Willful Injury Causing Serious Injury for his involvement in this shooting. Jones maybe traveling in a stolen silver 2019 Toyota Corolla with Iowa license plate KYP677.

Gavin Jones

Jones should be considered armed and dangerous.  Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Jones is asked to call 911 or the Oskaloosa Police Department at 641.672.2557.

Authorities say “This incident appears to be isolated, and there is no known ongoing threat to the public.”

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The City Council in Atlantic met for about an hour this (Wednesday) evening, and voted to give the Splashpad Fundraising Committee free-reign to pursue funding for the project, which is estimated to cost around $600,000. During the Parks and Rec Board meeting on March 20th, tempers flared when the suggestion was made to use the non-profit SHIFT ATL organization as a means to apply for and write grants for the project. Councilman Gerald Brink thought that should be left to new Parks and Rec Director Wyatt Adderton.

During that meeting, Adderton offered to be the Chairperson of the Fundraising Committee and an intermediary to foster communication between the Committee and City Hall. Since then Councilman Brink says he’s had conversations with many people, and it’s time to move on.

Brink said in the past, a group in town decided they wanted the Trojan Head painted on the water tower, and it got painted.

Brink asked “Why in the world are we creating such a fiasco.?”

Brink said it’s important to let those who want to take charge of the fundraising, to do with out interference from the City.

Councilpersons McCurdy and Hartkopf agreed. Brink then made the recommendation to turn the fundraising effort over to those who want to take on the task. Brink made the motion. The Council’s decision was met with a a round of applause.

On a related note, the Atlantic City Council approved an Order to have Snyder and Associates as the engineers for the Splashpad Project, at a cost of $85,000 (The Parks Board had previously endorsed the agreement), the funds of which will come from a Splashpad Project Fund City Administrator John Lund created last year with surplus LOST/Hotel-Motel tax funds. The Council also passed an Order to approve Snyder’s as the engineers for the Soccer Field Project.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports two men were arrested on separate charges today (Wednesday). 34-year-old Thomas Allen Daffer, of Red Oak, was arrested on a warrant for Assault. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $1,000 bond. And, 29-year-old Aidan Sergey Olen Lowry, of Omaha, NE, was arrested at the Sarpy County, NE jail, on a warrant for Violation of Probation. His bond was set at $5,000.

(Radio Iowa) – A key senator says priority issues are included in an education bill House Republicans just expanded to include things like alternative pathways for teacher licensing and defining what would be considered age appropriate school library books. Senate Education Committee chairman Ken Rozenboom, a Republican from Oskaloosa, says rolling those other bills into one 40-page package is how the legislative process often works. Rozenboom’s optimistic House and Senate Republicans will settle on a final package soon. “Bottom line is we need to do something, I believe, for our parents with some of the battles we’re fighting around the state in different places,” Rozenboom says.

The bill in its initial form came from Governor Kim Reynolds and G-O-P Senators approved the bill two weeks ago after some tweaks. Rozenboom will be meeting with the governor’s staff to review the House changes AND additions. Representative Skyler Wheeler of Hull is chairman of the HOUSE Education Committee. Wheeler says Republicans intend to help parents assert their rights in schools.  “Parents send their children to school to learn reading, math and writing,” Wheeler says. “When they do this they are putting trust into the school and the staff there. Unfortunately some of that trust has been broken by schools pushing wokeism.”

The bill would require an administrator to notify a parent if a student asks to be known by a different name or pronoun at school. It also forbids instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms. Democrats say the bill has a number of flaws. Representative Sharon Steckman, a Democrat from Mason City, is a retired teacher. Steckman says letting people become teachers after taking an online course should not be included in the package. “I believe there seems to be a trend here. We need a workforce, so let’s lower all the requirements,” Steckman said. “…I’d like to know what your vision for education is. Is it excellence, which we used to have, or is it mediocrity?”

Representative Sue Cahill, a Democrat from Marshalltown, objects to changes in the Board of Educational Examiners, so there’d be an equal number of parents and licensed educators on the board. “If you had plumbing problems in your house and the plumbing licensing board was called in to review the work and the issue and the license of the professional, this would be like having five plumbers, one plumbing store owner and five people who had flushed their toilet that morning decide on the quality of the work,” Cahill says.

The board is currently made up of nine teachers or school administrators and just two public members along with someone from the Iowa Department of Education.

(Radio Iowa)- The number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped this year. Nicole Shimp with Iowa State’s Monarch Conservation Consortium says they can tell the population by the number of monarchs in the tree canopy. “The space that they occupied in Mexico in the forest in their wintering grounds decreased by about 22 percent,” she says. “Last year, we were around seven acres. This year, we’re a little under five and a half acres.” Shimp says “You always had a little sadness with it, because last year, we saw just, you know, the population kind of held steady, which we thought was a pretty good sign. And so we were hopeful this year that it would maybe hold steady again, or increase a little.”

She says scientists estimate there needs to be a long-term average of about 15 acres to sustain the monarch population. Shimp says the monarch populations have dropped because of a loss of habitat down in Mexico, and loss of habitat in the Midwest where they spend their summer. She says this report shows the urgency to create more habitat continues. “This means that we need to continue to reinforce that the monarchs still need our help, and they’re still around, we just need to help them out a little bit to get the population back up,” she says. Iowa has been part of the effort to restore habitat, including the milkweed, which is the plant the monarch caterpillars eat and lay their eggs on.

Shimp says the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium report shows good things are happening here. “It showed between 2018 and 2020, that Iowans added 430-thousand acres of habitat in the state. And we even have a dashboard that you can go to that can show you it by county to county to kind of break it down if it’s agriculture, urban. So we have it broken down by different areas, and just seeing how many of those acres have gone in,” she explains. Shimp encourages everyone to register their monarch habitat. “If you have already put in habitat, but to make sure that your habitat is being recorded. So you can do that by we have an app called Habi-Tally,” she says. You don’t even have to be in the state of Iowa. You can put in your habitat into there and it walks you through how to do it.”

You can find out how to create a monarch habitat at: monarch.ent.iastate.edu.

(Lewis, Iowa) – The Cass County Conservation Board is now taking Pre-orders for their Native Plant Sale! The order form and payment will be DUE April 28th 2023 at 4PM. Forms can be found online https://www.casscountyia.gov/county-departments/conservation-office/

Native Local Eco-type live Plants will be sold. Live plants from nursery will come as small plugs; cells are 5” deep x 2” wide at top or 4.5”deep x 2” Cone. 1 Specie of Native grass, and 11 Native Forbs including many that benefit Pollinators! New this year Sneezeweed and Prairie Coreopsis! All orders must be picked up during designated times at the CCCB offices in Lewis, unless prior arrangements are made. Designated pick up times will be: Thursday May 25th 8 AM-6 PM OR Friday May 26th 8AM-7PM. Plants not picked up will be donated with NO REFUND.

The Cass County Conservation Board is also holding a Wildflower Walk! The program will be held at the Pellett Memorial Woods outside of Atlantic IA on April 29th 2023 at 9 am. FREE! Oak Strollers Nature Club for Families are welcome to join at this event! The Board invites you to walk through the early spring wildflowers with our naturalist. Learn the names, uses and history of these Wildflowers.

Those in attendance will meet at Pellett Memorial Woods- located just outside of Atlantic, ½ mile north and ¾ mile east of the KJAN radio station (63066 Troublesome Creek Rd).

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Glenwood Police Department reports the arrest on Tuesday, of 35-year-old Jeffrey Neppel, from Plattsmouth, NE. He was taken into custody on a Mills County warrant for Disorderly Conduct. Bond was set at $300 cash or surety.