Local efforts to improve and manage Iowa’s streams could end if the Legislature doesn’t fund the program in its closing week. “It really needs to get some funding this year, or the whole effort really kind of goes away,” said Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids. “It’s  kind of a farmer-led watershed improvement effort. It...
Read more »

Several Eastern Iowa groups are among more than 100 community-based child abuse prevention programs receiving $1.3 million in grants from the Iowa Department of Human Services. “These grants are designed to meet specific needs as identified by people on the front lines of child protection,” said Wendy Rickman, administrator of the Adult, Child and...
Read more »

Newhall—A water battle with a looming deadline is dividing the Benton County community of Newhall.  This fight is about storm water runoff and whether some homes in the community of 875 are illegally diverting that water into the town’s sanitary sewage system. The issue actually began back in 2009 when members of the Newhall...
Read more »

GARRISON-The Benton County town of Garrison may employ an unusual tactic in trying to restore the community’s library damaged by high winds last Monday. Monday’s windstorm ripped off the roof of the  century old building that housed the library.  Garrison Mayor Shelly Williams said the insurance coverage carried by the town won’t be enough...
Read more »

GARRISON- Monday’s wind storm did considerable damage in many parts of eastern Iowa.  But the Benton County community of Garrison took a real blow to its ability to respond to future emergencies.  That storm wiped out the town’s volunteer fire station burying emergency equipment under debris. Volunteers dug out the fire trucks Monday and...
Read more »

KEYSTONE – Benton County landowners learned why the Iowa Department of Transportation might shift the alignment of Highway 30 south or north in a forthcoming widening project, but many of them didn’t like it at a packed meeting here Wednesday night. More than 150 area residents, most of them landowners, turned out for a...
Read more »

Iowa’s largest non-profit nursing home chain has asked 37 communities to reclassify its homes from commercial to residential properties, which would cut the chain’s taxes in half and force cities and counties to scramble to make up for lost revenue. Twenty counties and cities will lose nearly $620,000 next year after approving the changes....
Read more »

DES MOINES – Iowa’s human services chief said Wednesday he expects his state agency will have to cut 236 positions through layoffs and attrition in light of expected budget cuts and no funding for salary adjustments in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Chuck Palmer, director of the state Department of Human Services,...
Read more »

DES MOINES – It appears that state Department of Human Services institutions will be spared employee layoffs, bed closings or service interruptions between now and June 30, the new DHS director told state legislators tosday. “The staffing level that we had as of Jan. 1 we will try to retain. By doing that, there...
Read more »

A roundup of Eastern Iowa cities and counties where guns have been prohibited on city or county property, after Iowa’s new gun law took effect Jan. 1. This information is based on area news reports and is current as of Jan. 17, 2011. Other cities and counties will soon be considering this issue. I...
Read more »