(Radio Iowa) – A bill that would let Iowa cigar bars sell liquor could be debated in a senate committee this week. Chuck Ripley owns The Cigar Social USA shop just off I-80 in Davenport. “We’re a high end premium cigar lounge and we should be able to serve you a beverage is you want one,” Ripley said, “an adult beverage, that is.” Iowa’s Smokefree Air Act allows indoor smoking on casino floors, but that is the only public exception to the law that was passed in 2008. Ripley says the bill would let businesses that sell premium cigars get a state liquor license.

“We’re trying to make this make a lot more sense for not only small business, but the Department of Revenue as well,” Ripley said. The fee for a state liquor license for Ripley’s business would be over 16-hundred dollars a year, plus the state sales tax would be assessed on every glass of whiskey, bourbon or tequilla sold. Ripley is among those who spoke at a subcommittee hearing in a room in the Iowa Capitol where smoking was allowed four decades ago.

A.J. Brown of Des Moines is urging legislators to grant cigar bars an exemption from the law that bans smoking in enclosed public areas, like bars. He’s has been to cigar bars in Rapid City, South Dakota, Omaha and Denver. “You can pair drinks and food,” Brown said. “This is a very similar thing where you can pair a drink with a cigar and enjoy both at the same time.” Chris Hay of Des Moines predicts Iowa cigar bars would draw more patrons if alcohol were served. He’s been to indoor cigar bars in Florida and Texas.

“My wife loves to go with me to these and she’ll have a cocktail or a drink while I have a cigar and a drink,” Hay said. A coalition of groups that support Iowa’s Smokefree Air Act oppose the move. Catherine Pollard is a spokesperson for CAFE — Clean Air for Everyone, a non-profit focused on reducing tobacco use. “At a time when Iowa’s cancer rates are rising, it’s really disappointing to see further exemptions being written in rather than closing some of the loopholes that already exist,” Pollard said.

Some states like Connecticut and Wisconsin that banned indoor smoking in the past 20 years allowed indoor cigar bars already in existence to continue serving alcohol. Wisconsin lawmakers are considering a bill that would license NEW businesses that could sell alcoholic drinks on the menu with premium cigars.

(Creston, IA) – Two central Iowa women were arrested Friday night on drug charges, in Creston. According to the Creston Police Department, the women were arrested at around 9:45-p.m., following a traffic stop on N. Cherry Street, in Creston. Authorities say 19-year-old Anaya Maree Michelle Gourley, of Ames, and 21-year-old Makayla Lynn Ira, of Des Moines, were each charges with Possession of Controlled Substance – Marijuana/1st offense. They were cited and released from the scene on a Promise To Appear (in court).

Late Saturday morning, Creston Police arrested 26-year-old Noah Alexander Young – a homeless person – at the intersection of Sycamore and Montgomery. Young was charged with Burglary 3rd Degree – Non-Vehicle related. He was transported to the Union County Jail and held without bond until seen by a Judge.

Two people were arrested early Sunday morning, in Creston: At around 1-a.m., 37-year-old Shaeina Laitaija Raeche Allison, of Creston, was arrested at the intersection of Sycamore and Buckeye. She was charged with DUS – Driving While License Denied, Suspended, Cancelled or Revoked. Allison was cited and released on a promise to appear; and, at around 3:30-a.m., Sunday, 24-year-old Marina Lissette Basaldua, of Lenox, was arrested at the Creston/Union County Law Enforcement Center. Basaldua was charged with DUS – Driving While License Denied, Suspended, Cancelled or Revoked and OWI – 1st Offense. She was transported to the Union County Jail and posted a $1,000 cash or surety bond before being released.

Creston Police said also, a woman residing in the 400 block of S. Bureau Street, reported Sunday evening, that her 2018 Ford Explorer was stolen from her residence between Friday night and Saturday Morning. The loss was estimated at $8,000.

(Guthrie Center, IA) – A driver who veered for a deer the evening of Feb. 9th in Guthrie County, ended-up putting his car into a ditch. The Guthrie County Sheriff’s Office says 33-year-old Taylor Jay Edelman, of Adair, was traveling northbound on Frontier Road at around 6:45-p.m. Feb. 9th, when near the intersection of 280th Street, he swerved to miss a deer. His 2012 Chevy Impala went out of control and into a field northwest of the intersection. Edelman was wearing his seat belt, and wasn’t hurt. His car sustained a Sheriff’s-department estimated $5,000 worth of disabling damage. No citations were issued.

(Atlantic, IA) – The Atlantic City Council has a lot to discuss during their regular meeting Wednesday evening, much of which has to do with the FY27 Budget, including proposed property tax levies, the Parks and Recreation Department Budget, and the possibility of establishing a Parks Director Position. In his meeting agenda prepared for the Council and media, City Administrator John Lund said with regard to the FY2027 Budget, property tax levies need to be “Nailed-down.” The meeting at City Hall, begins at 5:30-p.m.

Lund says “The Council will need to adopt a resolution setting the date of public hearing for our maximum property tax dollars for the required public hearing that will occur on April 1st and those specific levies will need to be determined for entry into the Iowa Department of Management’s digital portal so the Cass County Auditor can send out the wildly inaccurate notices on property taxes.

Shown above are the maximum property tax rates for both last year and this year. Lund says this year, a $0.60 increase is scheduled across three levies, totaling an increase of 5.80% in property tax collections. John Lund said also, with regard to the Parks and Recreation Department priorities and staffing,  “The Mayor, Council, and public have made it clear they want a Parks Director. The issue why this has not occurred is due to General Fund resource allocation. The Parks Director was eliminated in the late summer of 2023 to expand labor resources, elsewhere. It was considered a “deal.”  Lund says “Atlantic can see progress in the areas it wants, those General Fund resources are now available. The City can afford to pay for a Park’s Director at the market rate ($74,700) for a community of our size. I ran numbers on the costs and found this is a sustainable expenditure, assuming the 2% cap on new property tax dollars is implemented, taxable value is not gutted by tax credits and exemptions, and that all future wage growth is tied to this 2% amount or a new revenue source is identified.

“No cost allocation relating to this new position is necessary. This will be paid for by released property tax resources, so this is a simple calculus on if restoring this position to the City labor portfolio is something the Council wants to see.” On that note, the Atlantic City Council will discuss and possibly act on an Order regarding a Parks Director. If they determine it’s time to move forward with re-establishing the position, they will have to approve a motion to direct Lund to post the position.

Other action items on the agenda include:

• FY 2027 Budget – Compensation Adjustments.
• Resolution #11-26 “Approving the Proposed Maximum Property Tax Levy for FY 2027.”
• Resolution #12-26 “Setting a Public Hearing for the Proposed Maximum Property Tax Levy for Fiscal Year 2027 to be Held on April 1, 2026, at 5:00 P.M.”
• Resolution #13-26 “Approving Sunnyside Swimming Pool Fees and Applicability Provisions.”
• Resolution #14-26 “Amending the City of Atlantic Personnel Policy Handbook, Series 400, Code 401 to Provide a Health Insurance Waiver Incentive though a 401(a) Plan for Eligible Employees.”
• First Reading of Ordinance No. 1064 “An Ordinance Allowing Non-Iowa Residents to Be Hired and Employed as Part-Time and Reserve Officers for the City of Atlantic, Iowa.”
• Motion to Waive the Statutory Rule Requiring Separate Readings and Approve the Second and Third Readings of Ordinance No. 1064
• Second Reading of Ordinance No. 1064 “An Ordinance Allowing Non-Iowa Residents to Be Hired and Employed as Part-Time and Reserve Officers for the City of Atlantic, Iowa.”
• Third Reading and Final Adoption of Ordinance No. 1064 “An Ordinance Allowing Non-Iowa Residents to Be Hired and Employed as Part-Time and Reserve Officers for the City of Atlantic, Iowa.”

(Atlantic, IA) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors, in a regular meeting Tuesday, are expected to act on approving the installation of a bench on the County’s portion of the (downtown) Atlantic City Park. The bench would be located west of the monument. In other business, the Supervisors are expected to pass a resolution appointing Deputy Auditor Hannah Richter, and consider (along with possibly approve), the Publication of a Notice to Bidders for the cash rent of County-owned farm land in the southwest portion of the NW 1/4 of Section 15, Grove Township.  Bids will be opened at 9-a.m., Tuesday, March 17th, in the Board Room of the Cass County Courthouse in Atlantic.

The Board will receive a monthly report from Cass/Guthrie County Environmental Health Exec. Director Jotham Arber, and a Quarterly report for Cass County VA Exec. Director Mitch Holmes, as well as a regular report from County Engineer Trent Wolken, and other reports, as available.

Their meeting begins at 9-a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17th, and can be viewed electronically through Zoom, at:

(Radio Iowa) – A massive tree clearing project is planned for the Lewis and Clark State Park in Harrison County, near Mondamin. The D-N-R’s Sherry Arntzen says they closed the park on September 8th over safety concerns after noticing several dead trees. “The examination of 137 representative trees revealed that 99 percent of the park’s predominant species, eastern cottonwood, exhibit crown dieback with ten percent already standing dead,” she says. Arntzen says the trees range in diameter from 18 to 48 inches wide. “Mortality is attributed to over maturity and prolonged drought. Due to these harsh conditions, any tree with one-fourth or more canopy loss is unlikely to survive and classified as hazard,” Arntzen says.

The Natural Resources Commission approved a contract not to exceed one-point-seven million dollars for cutting down and removing the trees. Arntzen says they plan to remove the trees in two phases to improve the safety of the park. “Phase one involves felling approximately 610 mature trees in the campground and high use areas,” she says. “And phase two expands to clearing all hazardous timber within 150 feet of all hiking trails and roads covering approximately 98-point-five acres.” Arntzen says the first phase around the campground is expected to be completed by July. “The successful bidder anticipates being completed in that campground in time for RAGBRAI. So we had no idea that the RAGBRAI route was going to start in Onawa when all of this started back last fall,” she says. Getting rid of the wood from the felled trees is part of the contract.

“They’re going to fell the marked trees, they’re going to grind all the stumps, and they’re going to transport and dispose and burn of all woody debris and vegetation. We do have some brush piles established already that are out and away from our primary use areas,” she says. Arntzen says they have already planted a few trees and will look at the best way to replace trees that are removed. “And we will work with our foresters on appropriate trees to put back in our high use areas that is conducive to the soils that are there,” she says.

The work in the areas that are not high use could extend into March of 2028.

(Creston, IA) – Firefighters from Creston responded early Saturday morning to a report of hay bales on fire at the Creston Livestock Market. Upon arrival, firefighters discovered 11 round bales burning. A second page was made within one-half hour of the initial response (at 12:33 a.m.), requesting additional firefighters for a working fire.

The bales were located against the east side of the brick building, near the train tracks. An employee used a skid loader to move the bales away from the structure and separate them, aiding firefighters in gaining better access to extinguish the flames. Their assignment was completed in about two-hours, but later Saturday morning, firefighters returned to extinguish the bales that continued to smolder.

Still frame image from a video by Dillon Daughenbaugh/CFD, of Creston Tanker 4 single-operator fire suppression unit. (Creston FD Facebook page)

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

(Radio Iowa) – A coach who’s also a member of the Iowa House is proposing an expansion of the time coaches are not allowed to have contact with Iowa students who participate in high school sports. Representative Skyler Wheeler, a former baseball player at Northwestern College, is head coach of the baseball team at Unity Christian High School in Orange City.

“Currently right now in the summer when baseball and softball (seasons) finish, you have a week off where you can have no contact as coaches with athletes,” Wheeler said. “It’s basically in place to allow parents and student athletes to take a trip together. They’re not going to miss any practices or things like that.” That seven-day period starts on a Sunday in late July and Wheeler’s bill would extend it for three more days.

The bill also calls for a one-week “no contact” period in November, a no-contact period from December 25th to January 1st and a seven day “spring break” that would give students a break from all sports. “I think this would be very popular with parents,” Wheeler said. “It may not be super popular with some coaches or some sports, but I think as we move this conversation forward, we’ll be able to get to a good spot with it.”

The bill easily cleared the House Education Committee last week on a 20-to-three vote, but not after some push back from Representative Daniel Gosa. He’s a former Davenport School Board member who has coached his son’s Little League baseball team. “November would be a huge problem for miscellaneous programs as teams that make playoffs in football would overlap with wrestling and cause major conflicts,” Gosa said. “December, the middle of the wrestling season, that would be bad news for, you know, giving wrestlers seven days off with weight management and endurance would drop.”

The non-contact and no practice policies outlined in the bill would also apply to theater productions, cheerleading, show choir and band. Wheeler says if you were to poll the students, they’d probably say they’d like more free time between sports seasons. “One of my schools won the state football championship this last year. The very next week they were playing basketball,” Wheeler said. “They are a decent basketball team. They almost got knocked off by probably one of the worst teams in their class simply because there was no time off, they were exhausted and they went right into basketball.”

Wheeler says the bill may be altered to line up better with winter sports like basketball and wrestling, but Wheeler says the goal is to get a vote in the full House on a uniform time-off-from-sports policy that gives kids a break. “If I take a whole off of sports and my team is practicing…from a coach’s perspective, that kid’s going to sit,” Wheeler said. “They’re not going to play that kid for a while and he’s going to get rusty.”

A designated “family week” started in the summer of 2021 to give Iowa high school students, coaches and teachers a week away from practicing for sports or band.

DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – Nathan Sage, a Democratic candidate for US Senate, announced Sunday he’s suspending his campaign. Sage, a Marine veteran from Indinanola, said in a statement in part, “This has been one of the hardest decisions of my life. I did not step into this race lightly, and I do not step away lightly.”

Sage said the campaign was “unable to raise the financial resources necessary to keep the campaign viable.” State legislators Zach Whals and Josh Turek are now the remaining two democrats looking to earn the nomination for their party.

Sage was the first Democrat to announce his campaign for the U.S. Senate.

(Red Oak, IA) – A traffic stop this (Sunday) afternoon in Red Oak, resulted in a felony drug-related arrest. According to Red Oak Police, officers stopped 40-year-old Aaron Lucas Allen, of Red Oak, at around 2:20-p.m.in the area of Highland/Coolbaugh Street,  for Driving While License Suspended. Allen was subsequently charged with Possession of Methamphetamine/3rd or subsequent offense – a Class D Felony.

He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $5,000 bond.