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Teenage hunter shot to death

October 20, 2009 By

A teenage hunter was shot to death in northeast Iowa. The teen, who was from Manchester, was killed in a hunting accident in Delaware County Monday afternoon.

The Sheriff’s Office has identified the victim as 18-year old Ronald Lawson. Lawson was hunting with a group about one mile north of Dundee when he was accidentally shot shortly after 12:30 pm. A member of the hunting party was doing random target practice when he fired a shot that struck Lawson. At the time, Lawson was out of sight behind dense foliage.

The shooting remains under investigation by the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office and the DNR.

(Story contributed by Janelle Tucker, KMCH, Manchester)

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

This is “School Bus Safety” week

October 20, 2009 By

It’s “School Bus Safety Week” in Iowa and school and law enforcement officials are asking motorists to pay attention to safety around the big yellow vehicles. 

Webster City schools transportation director Ted Larson says the week helps recognize the drivers while reminding motorists of the important cargo they contain.

“It’s just bringing awareness to the public, the job that our bus drivers do, which is a tremendous job,” he says, “keeping everybody safe on the buses as well as at our bus stops and making sure they get on the bus safe and follow the rules of the bus and get delivered to school safely.”

The theme of this year’s week is “Avoid Harm, Obey the Stop Arm.” Larson says motorists do occasionally drive through when the red stop sign is out on buses.

“You know, it’s a $180 fine if they should get caught doing that which, you know, our bus drivers…try to get a license plate number and turn that information over to the local police and then they’ll follow up on it,” he says.  “…As we get going in the winter months here, the daylight gets shorter so we’ve just all got to be aware that we’ve got kids coming to bus stops.”

Larson says drivers work with the kids to avoid any problems on board the buses and the expectations on the bus are not much different than those in a classroom, as they have to be sure everyone stays seated and follows the rules. 

 There is more information about bus safety on-line at: www.napt.org.

(Story contributed by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)

Filed Under: Education Tagged With:

Salvation Army sees need grow

October 20, 2009 By

tDemand for services from the state’s 19 Salvation Army offices has increased markedly over the past year. In the past year, for example, the Salvation Army office in Marshalltown has seen a 24 percent increase in the number of families asking for help. 

“When the gas prices spiked, the people that we serve, a higher percentage of their income has to go for keeping their car going,” says Major John McCarty, head of the Salvation Army office in Marshalltown. “When (gas prices) got really high, we had a huge demand and it’s backed off a little bit from that (high level of demand), but it’s generally higher than it’s been in previous years.” 

Captain Paul Ferguson has been on the job at Ottumwa’s Salvation Army office for three months and he’s planning for a 20 percent increase in demand in the coming year.

“I was looking at the demographics for the area and southeast Iowa is running at 10 percent unemployment right now. That’s kind of from Burlington up to Ottumwa and I know we’ve lost one business (in Ottumwa) and there have been layoffs at three others at least, so there are a lot of struggling people right now,” Ferguson says.  “And even those that are working are struggling, so we’re seeing a lot of working poor.” 

Salvation Army offices provide food assistance.  Many but not all provide help to those who can’t pay their rent or mortgage — or their utility bills.  Arvid Huismann, development director of the Salvation Army’s “city office” in Des Moines, says their family services department saw an 18 percent increase in demand over the past year.

“Out of the 37,000 individuals that we served with family services last year, about 9700 were first-time clients,” Huisemann says.

Lieutenant Ronald Cook has been at the Salvation Army Corps in Newton for eight years. ”Ever since Whirlpool pulled out of here it’s been pretty hard on us and the community.  The community’s just trying to build itself back up, but yet there is so much need here,” Cook says. “We’ve tried to help them the best we could, but we haven’t been able to give as much help because there is so much need.”  

With more households applying for assistance, the amount of food and living expenses given to each household has declined.

Envoy Tim North expects traffic at his Salvation Army office in Boone to keep growing, as a big manufacturer in Boone will soon shut down.

“I would suspect with the economy and jobs kind of getting a little bit scarce, we will probably see some influx from that also,” North says.

The Salvation Army has offices or “corps” in Boone, Burlington, Cedar Rapids, Clinton, Council Bluffs, Davenport, Des Moines, Dubquue, Fort Dodge, Fort Madison, Iowa City, Keokuk, Marshalltown, Mason City, Muscatine, Newton, Ottumwa, Sioux City and Waterloo.

Filed Under: Business, Human Interest

A dozen flood recovery groups still working with ’08 victims

October 20, 2009 By

tIowans are still cleaning up and trying to get their lives in order 16 months after the devastating floods of 2008. Many people, however, are too overwhelmed to finish the job.

Duane Blum of Mason City is a volunteer with the United Way of North Central Iowa. He and his wife Chris are still meeting flood victims who haven’t made an effort to clean up their homes.

“Until you’ve experienced flooding, you don’t know how it mentally effects you…the despair and helplessness,” Blum said.

Many homeowners decided to hold off on cleaning their home to wait and see if they would qualify for a government buyout. ”And then some of them are afraid to ask for help or they’re embarrassed because they think they should be able to do it by themselves,” Blum said.

Even if they receive a buyout, homeowners still need to get everything out of the home before its demolished.  ”A lot of the (homes) we’re doing this year are ones that they’ve done part of it and then they just got wore out or depressed from it and can’t finish the job,” Blum said.

There are now 25 long-term recovery committees across Iowa. Many of those organizations did not exist prior to last year’s floods and tornadoes. Blum says volunteer groups in the state have learned a lot about the long-term response that’s need in the event of a disaster.

“Three months after the flood, nothing was happening, so we lost that time when we should have been doing recovery work,” Blum said. “Now, we’ve got this organization set up so next time…any kind of disaster, we can step in and start the process right away instead of having to create the whole organization.”

State officials say volunteers are still needed to assist with recovery efforts in many flood-damaged areas around the state. Individuals or groups can call the Iowa Concern Hotline to learn how they can help. That hotline number is (800) 447-1985.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Human Interest, Weather

Former Clinton band teacher to spend 160 months in prison

October 20, 2009 By

A former Clinton High School band teacher is sentenced to prison time on a conviction of attempting to entice a minor into sex acts.

James Young was arrested last spring in the internet sting operated through the DeWitt Police Department. Young was arrested when he drove to DeWitt to meet his contact from an internet chat that was actually a DeWitt police officer posing as a teenage girl.

Earlier this year a jury found Young guilty and yesterday the judge sentenced Young to 13-and-a-half years in prison.  When released, he is to be on probation for 10 years.  Upon his release, Young is not to have access to the internet, have a camera, view pornography, enter any adult entertainment establishments and he is to undergo a mental health evaluation.  He will not be allowed unsupervised contact with minors under the age of 18, but will be allowed to see his children.  Young must also undergo sex offender treatment and obey all sex offender laws. And he must pay $100 to a crime victim’s fund.

Young was placed on leave from his teaching job at Clinton High School upon his arrest and later resigned.

Story by Dave Vickers, KROS, Clinton

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Iowans for Tax Relief urges five percent pay cut for state workers

October 20, 2009 By

A conservative, anti-tax group is urging state workers to accept a five percent cut in their pay, to avoid hundreds of layoffs in state government.  Iowans for Tax Relief president Ed Failor, Junior says a salary reduction is better than outright unemployment.

“We shouldn’t be cutting services and we shouldn’t be adding to the unemployment rolls,” Failor says.  “We already have enough people unemployed.” 

On Friday, Governor Culver said he’d be having “candid” conversations with union leaders and that would “perhaps” be a prelude to reopening contract talks in order to enact pay cuts.  According to Failor, cutting state workers’ salaries by five percent would save about $140 million.  Failor says he doubts the unions will agree to reopen contract talks.

“The unions then are showing what they’re really about.  What they’re really about is getting as much out of the taxpayer as they possibly can and Keeping average salaries up as high as they can and expanding their power,” Failor says.  “What they should be about is protecting those thousand-plus employees that everyone’s acknowledging are going to be laid off and say, ‘Are we brothers in this union or are we not?’ And if we are, then we should not want others getting laid off and losing their jobs in their entirety when what we can do to solve the same problem is say, “Everyone’s going to share this burden and take a little bit of the cut.’” 

Danny Homan, president of AFSCME Council 61 — the union representing the largest share of state workers, issued a written statement, saying his union worked hard to settle a contract that was “fair to both state employees and taxpayers.”  Homan said it would be “unfair” to comment on any future negotiations, whenever they may occur.

Filed Under: Business, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , , ,
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