The Carroll County Attorney’s Office has filed felony charges against three teens, who allegedly took part an incident which occurred March 2nd, during which a gun was fired at a vehicle occupied by several people. According to court records, a 16-year old boy was charged with committing the delinquent act of intimidation with a dangerous weapon. The other boys, ages 14 and 16, were charged with committing the delinquent act of intimidation with a dangerous weapon and charged with aiding and abetting the shooting of a dangerous weapon at a vehicle occupied by several people. One of the teens lives in Carroll County, the other two are from Crawford County. The teens, who were identified as Tanner Bald, Keaton Otto and Colton Otto, were charged in Carroll County District Court’s Juvenile Division.

No one was hurt during the incident, but the charges allege  the shooting did put the occupants of the vehicle at risk to suffer an injury.  The Superintendent of the IKM-Manning Community Schools told KCCI TV in Des Moines, that none of the district’s students have been expelled or suspended due to the incident. The boys have since returned to school.

The Vision Iowa Board Wednesday, awarded over one-point-two-five million dollars ($1.25 million) in grants to six projects across the state. Vision Iowa spokesperson Jessica O’Riley says the town of Hancock is receiving an award of $175,000. The grant will help with improvements at the popular Botna Bend Park. The project includes construction of a new restroom, plus enhancements to a water trail and campgrounds.

O’Riley says the largest award of $404,068 is going to the Des Moines Social Club.The organization is acquiring and renovating an old fire station in downtown Des Moines. The $3.3 million project involves the creation of a theater space, classrooms, an art gallery and more. An award of just over 250-thousand dollars ($250,000) will help finance a $1.3 million project in Marion — the construction of a large amphitheater in Lowe Park.

“The Lowe Park project is really impressive,” O’Riley said. “It has a humongous burr oak leaf that forms the canopy to the amphitheater, so it’s an outdoor performing stage. The drawings the board has seen are quite stunning.” The Vision Iowa Board also awarded grant to a library expansion in Waukon and various community projects in Van Horne. O’Riley said both projects have tremendous community support.

“For the town of Waukon, which has just about 4,000 people, they raised $656,000 in private fundraising,” O’Riley said. “In Van Horne, which has (a population of) under 700, they are near $500,000 raised locally.” A project that involves improvements to a riverfront park in Charles City was awarded a grant of just over $36,000.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

No injuries were reported following a house fire in Griswold Wednesday evening.

Photo courtesy Mike Kennon, Cass County Emergency Management Coordinator

According to Cass County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Kennon, the fire at 201 Harrison Street was reported at around 5:35-p.m. Griswold Fire Chief Jim Wyman told KJAN News  the damage was primarily contained to the second story bedroom in the 100-year old home, owned by Ryan and Sarah Askeland, the owner’s of Dusty’s Place in Griswold. The family was not home when the fire started.

Wyman said the fire is believed to be related to an electrical problem, but he could not pin-down an exact cause. Damage to the home was said to be minimal.

(Update: Radford was acquitted of the charges during his trial in July of 2013. His case was summarily dismissed.)

Authorities in Mills County reports that two former Glenwood firefighters have been arrested on pandering, pimping and/or sexual abuse charges, in connection with an incident that reportedly occurred on September 9th, 2012 in rural Pacific Junction. According to a complaint filed by the Mills County Attorney’s Office, 23-year old Colton David Radford and 31-year old Brandt David Hopp allegedly solicited an intoxicated female friend to have sex for money with another person.

According to the complaint, after an agreement was made, a third person arrived and allegedly attempted to have sex with the victim. Due to her intoxication, the victim lost consciousness at which point Hopp then allegedly engaged in sexual acts with her. The victim regained consciousness, pushed Hopp away and left with the money paid to her by Hopp and Radford.

Hopp faces felony charges of Sex Abuse in the Third Degree, and Pandering. If convicted, he faces up to 15-years in prison and fines totaling $17,500.  He was being held in the Mills County jail on $15,000 bond. Radford is facing felony charges of Pandering and Pimping. If convicted, he could be held up to 10-years in jail and face fines of up to $15,000. His bond was set at $5,000.

Both men hare scheduled to appear in court for their preliminary hearings, on March 27th. The case against them was investigated by the Glenwood Police Department, Mills County Sheriff’s Office and Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa reports a former Page County man was sentenced to four-years in prison for possessing child pornography. 49-year old John R. Clark, of Clarinda, will serve the 48 month term consecutively with a sentence Clark is currently serving in Florida, for Lewd and Lascivious Act on a Child. The 48 month sentence was imposed by United States District Judge John Jarvey, who also ordered Clark to serve a ten year term of supervised release following incarceration.

Clarinda Police Chief Keith Brothers reports numerous senior citizens in his community have recently reported receiving unsolicited telephone calls from individuals who are identifying themselves as being with the federal Medicare program and threatening to cut the senior citizen’s Medicare benefits off if the individual does not provide personal information such as birth dates, social security numbers, bank account numbers and other personal data.The Chief says the callers are being very persistent and in some instances have called the same senior citizen up to three times.  In some instances the caller has information to include the senior citizen’s bank account number, a check number and bank routing number.

The Clarinda Police Department would like to remind everyone to never provide sensitive personal information to unknown callers on telephone and to immediately hang up the telephone if a call of this nature is received. Brothers says the federal Medicare program does not ask for personal information over the telephone.He said also that his department often sees an increase in this type of fraud during the Medicare open enrollment period, but is continuing to see this type of fraud attempted even though the enrollment period has passed.

Members of the Atlantic Community School District’s Board of Education will meet in a Special Session Thursday evening beginning at 6,  in the High School Media Center. The only item on their agenda, is approval of the district’s proposed Capital Improvement Projects. The Board discussed those projects during their regular meeting on Monday. The combined project cost amounts to roughly $9.5-million dollars.

Atlantic Superintendent Dr. Mike Amstein says that includes $1.6-million dollars in work on the Washington Elementary School. The proposal incorporates 4 new classrooms on the northeast wing, a small cafeteria on the side of the gym, and an access road primarily for buses that should alleviate traffic congestion in front of the building. The access road adds about $220,000 to the cost at Washington.

Proposed work on the Schuler Elementary School includes $3.8-million for the construction of 12 more classrooms, which will result in moving some third grade students at the Washington School over to the new addition at Schuler, as well as any overflow students at Schuler itself. The Middle School would get a new commons area under the proposed Capital Improvements Plan, at a cost of about $1-million. It would be situated in what is now the courtyard area between the auditorium and the gymnasium. And it would be similar to what is currently in place at the Atlantic High School.

As for the Atlantic High School, Amstein says the proposal includes the addition of seven new classrooms on the west end of the building, and expanding the art room, at a cost of about $2.9-million. In addition, the Board is looking at replacing all the heat pumps that the high school, but that is not included in the CIP. The pumps, which have been in-place for about 18-years, have reached the end of their life expectancy.

Amstein says the good news out of all this is that they can borrow money for the projects while the time is still right as far as the interest rates is concerned. He says interest rates are at record lows and are expected to continue to decline. And, the High School will come off of Debt Service at the end of May. The projects he says should serve the district’s needs for at least the next 10-years. If the projects are approved during Thursday evening’s meeting, the next steps include project development and design (the board has only seen preliminary drawings thus far).

The four-year graduation rate at the Atlantic High School fell below the statewide average for 2011-12, according to the Iowa Department of Education. That news came from Atlantic Superintendent Dr. Michael Amstein, during Monday night’s meeting of the Atlantic School Board. The graduation information from the DOE was broken down into a four- and five-year study, or cohort. Amstein said Atlantic’s 4-year cohort was 84.55, while the statewide average was 89.26%.

Atlantic’s five-year graduation rate was 91.87, which was slightly above the statewide average of 91.40%. Amstein said 11 students dropped out of the district last year, making the dropout rate 2.50%, while the state average is 3.20%. Amstein says while the five-year graduation rate and drop-out rates are below the statewide average, there is still much work to be done within the district to address the higher-than-average 4-year cohort, and the dropout rate.

Amstein was concerned that the graduation rate in the district for the 2011-12 calendar year was the lowest recorded over the past five-years. He said the administrative staff needs to sit down and try to determine what needs to be done to correct to graduation rate and address the dropout issue. He says they conduct exit interviews with students to find out why kids drop out, but no two circumstances are the same, and the reasons vary.

The Iowa Department of Education (IDE) has collected individual student level graduation and dropout data since the 2004-2005 school year, through Project EASIER (Electronic Access System for Iowa Education Records). In the EASIER system, each student has an assigned unique state student identification number. Iowa’s 2009 graduating class was the first group of students to have a statewide identifica­tion number for five years.