A southeast Iowa community is doing away with the tradition of grade school kids bringing homemade snacks to share with classmates on special days, as administrators fear exposure to the illegal drug methamphetamine. The Mount Pleasant superintendent is sending a letter to parents of elementary schoolers, banning homemade treats from school because of the danger of meth toxins. John Roederer says the recommendation comes after a state meth specialist said the drug permeates homes in which it is produced and can be transferred to food. Roederer says parents are encouraged to send in prepackaged treats instead, which he says are enjoyable and are of nutritional value. He says it’s known that several children come from homes where meth is being made. He calls the residual effects of meth “scary.” Mount Pleasant has also canceled its formerly-annual culture fair at the middle school, where students prepared and sampled foods from dozens of countries. Some schools in the Des Moines metro area have already banned home-baked treats to prevent the spread of illness.
House committee to debate insurance coverage for mental illness
A House committee today (Thursday) will debate a bill that would force insurance companies to cover treatment for “biologically based” mental illnesses. Representative Danny Carroll, a republican from Grinnell, says he’ll try to convince fellow committee members that biologically-based mental illnesses should be covered by an insurance policy just as any other physical illness or malady. Carroll says people will be surprised to learn that the new mandate for insurance coverage outlined in the bill will only affect about one-fourth of Iowans who have medical insurance. Three-quarters of insured Iowans already have coverage for mental health treatment in their plan, or their insurance policy is regulated by federal rather than state law. Earlier this week, democratic senators said they’d favor requiring insurance companies to cover not only mental health treatment, but substance abuse counseling and treatment for people who have eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia. Carroll says that would be a mistake. “To the extent that you load up those mandates on health care providers, you’ll drive up the cost and then fewer people will have access to any health care coverage at all,” Carroll says. “You can go too far and end up doing more harm than good.” Carroll says you’ve got to be careful that new state regulations don’t drive the cost of health insurance too high, pricing it out of reach for some consumers and over the line for employers who decide to quit providing health care insurance for their workers.
Group says cutting foster care will increase crime
A coalition of police officers and prosecutors spoke out today (Thursday) against a proposal to cap federal funds sent to states to pay for foster care. Des Moines Police Chief William McCarthy says foster care homes are an important part of dealing with crime. He says some 16-hundred kids in Iowa have to be removed from their homes due to crimes committed by adults. He says if you have to remove kids, you have to put them someplace. He says foster care in Iowa is “very good.” He says foster care does wonderful things for the most vulnerable in our society. McCarthy spoke on behalf of a coalition called “Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.” He says the coalition’s research shows what happens when kids aren’t put in foster care and are left in bad situations. He says when they become adults they’re 27-percent more likely to commit crime. He says additionally, four-out-of-ten of these children who’re left in homes of that nature will engage in violent acts themselves prior to becoming an adult. McCarthy says it’s clear that cutting foster care will lead to more abuse and crime. He says, “It’s simply wrong we think to break trust with the children of this society that find themselves in that position. And we look for out legislators at the federal level to look out for the interests of these children.” Carroll County Attorney John Werden says the increase in meth labs in rural Iowa has exacerbated the problem. He says as someone who has gone out and executed search warrants and walked in homes and seen five gallon buckets of acid bubbling away making meth and smelling the caustic chemicals andthinking about the kids living the homes, “I can tell you law enforcement needs foster care as a law enforcement tool to protect these abused and neglected children.” Werden says cutting foster care is taking money away from the area where it helps the most. He says under the proposed new limits on foster care, “it will lead to children suffering.” He says foster care needs to be available for those neglected children. The “Fight Crime: Invest in Kids” coalition says it includes 90 police, sheriff or prosecutor’s offices in Iowa.
Ankeny police shoot and kill man who reportedly was suicidal
An Ankeny police officer shot and killed a man this morning (Thursday) at an apartment that police had been called to numerous times in the past. Police chief Gary Mikulec says they were called to the apartment on the southeast side of Ankeny about 7:25 a-m on the report a man who was on drugs and suicidal. He says officers arrived at the apartment and spoke with 20-year-old Arman Zilic. Mikulec says they spoke with Zilic for roughly five minutes, and during that time Zilic had a sawed-off shotgun on his lap, and continued to snort cocaine. He says officers asked Zilic several times to raise his arms and push himself away from the desk. Mikulec says the three officers continued to try and talk Zilic into giving up — but were unsuccessful. He says Zilic gripped the shotgun and turned toward officer Lincoln Schmeiser. He says Schmeiser had his weapon drawn and fired two shots — fatally wounding Zilic. Mikulec says this was one of multiple calls they’d made to Zilic’s apartment. He says, “We’ve been to that apartment before, we’ve dealt with this person. And uh, we know his behavior has been unpredictible with all those past dealings and its why we sent three offices on this call.” Mikulec says he doesn’t know the exact details of all the calls, but says the most recent trip to Zilic’s two weeks ago also involved a weapon. He says they were able to talk Zilic into dropping the weapon and transported him for treatment. Mikulec says the officer that fired the shots, Lincoln Schmeiser has been on the Ankeny Department for six years. He says it’s the first time Schmeiser has fired his weapon in the line of duty. He says, “The officer’s quite shaken by this incident.” Officer Schmeiser and two sergeants from the department who were also at the scene have been put on administrative leave while the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation reviews the shooting.
Grocery store managers lobby Statehouse on bottle bill
Two hundred managers and executives from grocery stores around the state were at the statehouse Wednesday, asking legislators to change the state’s bottle deposit law. Grocers have been appealing for an end to the law’s requirement that grocery stores accept empty beverage cans and bottles and pay back the five-cent deposit. Doug Bradford manages a Fareway store in Nevada. “We want a better option to the bottle bill,” Bradford says. “There’s many different choices that can be made to keep our ditches clean short of sending everything back to our store.” Jeff Boorill (BOR-uhl) works at Fareway’s home office in Boone and he says they have other concerns, too. He says grocers aren’t pleased with the proposal Governor Vilsack seeks that would place all over-the-counter cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine behind a pharmacists’ counter in an effort to limit purchases made by meth-makers. “We don’t want to be totally out of the cold and allergy business for our customers that need it every day,” Boorill says. In addition, the grocers say the legislature should not raise the cigarette tax because it will hurt stores along Iowa’s borders as customers who’re smokers will to a neighboring state to buy cheaper cigarettes. Darren Oppman manages a Fareway in Waverly. “I think we’re taxed enough as consumers…taxes is not the answer to me,” Oppman says. He suggests there’s “no end in sight” if lawmakers start raising taxes on things that aren’t good for you — or in his words — “things the public deems as not kosher.”
House votes to add fee to tickets for crime lab
The Iowa House has voted to tack a new fee onto speeding tickets and other criminal penalties. Representative George Eichhorn, a republican from Stratford, says the two-percent surcharge on speeding tickets and other criminal fines would raise about 700-thousand dollars a year to buy and maintain equipment in the State Crime Lab. “To effectively have the best equipment there, we need a funding source. This is the funding source,” Eichhorn says. Representative Rob Hogg, a democrat from Cedar Rapids, says federal funding for the lab ran out in December and the money’s needed to replace “aged equipment.” “Normally, I don’t think any of us would like to do this, but there is a compelling reason why we need to and that’s so that we can have the highest quality crime lab that we can have,” Hogg says. But Representative Bruce Hunter, a democrat from Des Moines, says the state is already assessing a 30 percent surcharge on speeding tickets and other court fines — and it’s getting excessive. Hunter says it’s a backdoor tax increase. “It’s going to get to a point some day where it’s going to be cheaper to go to jail or to lose your license than to pay the extra surcharges that we’re adding on to these fines,” Hunter says. Representative Michael Reasoner, a democrat from Creston, says he, too, is reluctant to increase fees,but this is a special case.”Ultimately, we do have to find a way to fund those functions of state government which we are responsible for,” Reasoner says. “The bottom line is we have equipment that we as a state must furnish so the people who are charged with their responsibilities can do their job.” The bill passed on a 95 to three vote. It must pass the Senate and be signed by the governor before it becomes law.
House votes to deregulate phone companies
The Iowa House has voted to deregulate Qwest, Frontier and Telecom — and some legislators argue it may lead to cheaper phone service for Iowans. Representative Willard Jenkins, a republican from Waterloo, says the industry has come a long way from his youth when his family had a phone that was a brown box that hung on a wall and had the number F-one-two. “You know, this is significant legislation,” Jenkins says. “It’s the change of an era.” Representative Ralph Watts, a republican from Adel, was the bill’s floor manager. Watts says telephone companies will have many stormy issues ahead as other technologies proliferate. “This bill will not address any of those concerns, but it will allow open competition in the marketplace.” Watts says the bill won’t protect any telephone company, but it will allow the market to work without regulatory interference. He says when the market is allowed to work, experience shows investment in facilities will follow. Representative Janet Peterson, a democrat from Des Moines, says while the bill ends regulation of telephone line rates, but state officials will still have some authority to rule on quality issues. “With this bill, Iowa is kind of leading the parade on deregulation,” Peterson says. She says phones have changes a lot over the years — kids are talking over the Internet now. Representative Phil Wise, a democrat from Keokuk, says it’s an amazing bill. Wise says it’s “truly amazing” that this deregulation bill wasn’t that controversial because in 1995, Iowa legislators quibbled for hours and hours over the first step to deregulating the telephone industry.
