Supervisors Will Not Meet This Week
(Le Mars) — Plymouth County Board of Supervisors are taking time off from their weekly duties governing the county. There is no scheduled meeting today for the Plymouth County Board of Supervisors. The next meeting will be held next Tuesday, December 29th beginning at 9:30 a.m. Also, the Plymouth County Courthouse and Courthouse Annex will be closed on Thursday, Christmas Eve, Friday, Christmas day, and on Friday, January 1st, New Year’s Day.
Branstad Asks State Agencies To Develop Plan Against Cyber Attacks
(Des Moines) — Governor Terry Branstad has issued an executive order that calls on state agencies to draft a “cyber security” strategy. In addition, the governor is asking his Homeland Security agency to update its emergency response plan to “deal with the physical consequences of a cyber attack on critical infrastructure” like the electrical grid, water supplies or transportation networks.
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Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds says a year ago the governor assembled a working group to discuss ways for state government and the private sector in Iowa to “prevent, detect, respond and recover” from a cyber attack.
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State officials say there is no “credible threat” they know of today, but they’re mum about whether previous threats have been thwarted. In 2012, a hacker in another country tapped into South Carolina’s computer servers and got access to more than three-and-a-half million Society Security numbers belonging to South Carolina taxpayers. In the past few years there have been data breaches at Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, but the governor’s executive order on cyber security does not apply to the three Regents universities. Branstad’s order only applies to executive branch agencies. Branstad’s chief information officer will work with administrators from the Iowa National Guard, the Iowa Department of Public Safety, the Iowa Communications Network and the state’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department to come up with a cyber security report by July 1st.
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Branstad Says Three Companies Is Enough To Serve Iowa Medicaid Needs
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Gov. Terry Branstad says Medicaid recipients enrolled with a private company that now has a terminated state contract can be covered by one of three remaining companies set to take over the $4.2 billion program.
Branstad says three companies is an adequate number for providing managed care of Medicaid services in the state. His remarks Monday come after an official terminated the state’s contract with WellCare of Iowa on Friday.
Branstad says the Iowa Department of Human Services will contact people enrolled in WellCare to inform them about the remaining companies. Department spokeswoman Amy Lorentzen McCoy says about 140,000 people will be reassigned equally among the companies over several weeks.
WellCare says it will legally challenge its termination. McCoy says the department does not comment on pending litigation.
Iowa State Extension To Offer “Crop Advantage” Meetings
(Le Mars) — 2016 may prove to be an interesting economic year for farmers as they see commodity prices continue on a downward trend. The question is, how can farmers maximize their outputs and production, while trying to minimize their rising input costs? Iowa State University Extension and Outreach will host a series of crop advantage meetings across Iowa addressing that issue. Joel DeJong, extension crops specialists says two well-known and respected Iowa State University specialists are scheduled to speak at Sheldon on January 5th.
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DeJong says the crop advantage meetings will look at various different aspects in relation to a farming operation and will make suggestions to farmers as how they can operate their farming business, while looking at small margins.
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DeJong says the more ways farmers can reduce their costs will definitely help the farmer’s bottom line, but he says farmers can’t cut things that create a huge risk. He says trying to balance risk versus reduced costs will be the focus of many sessions during the crop advantage meetings.
Other meetings in northwest Iowa are as scheduled: January 6th at Okoboji, January 12th at Storm Lake, January 26th at Le Mars, and January 28th at Carroll. Registration fees are $50 a person. Farmers can go online to find a meeting scheduled for their location.
Bernie Sanders Visits Sioux City
(Sioux City) — A fervent crowd of 1150 supporters turned out for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders town hall meeting in Sioux City Monday night.
It was the Vermont Senator’s first visit to Sioux City and his campaign moved his appearance from the local Boys Club to the Sioux City Convention Center because of a large number of advance ticket requests.
Sanders spent much of his hour long speech attacking Wall Street and corporate greed in America, and how he would have the wealthy pay for his proposed reforms, including a tax to provide tuition free college for students who can’t afford higher education:
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Sanders also said he would leave it up to states to decide on legalizing marijuana, but would no longer have pot possession fall as a federal crime:
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He spoke about crushing ISIS with an international coalition led by Muslim nations not the United States military:
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Sanders congratulated Iowa for its many wind farms and green energy endeavors.
He spent time criticizing Republican Donald Trump but did not address his own problems with the Democratic party involving their restricting his campaign access to polling data.
Sanders will speak Tuesday in Storm Lake at Buena Vista University.
That town hall forum takes place at 10am in the Siebens School of Business.
Grassley Speaks About Spending Bill
(New Hartford) — Prior to going home for the Christmas break, both the U-S Senate and the U-S House of Representatives passed a spending bill that exceeds $1.6 trillion. Many people wonder how is the United States ever going to get itself out of debt, if Congress continues to pass legislation that expands the spending level and national debt? Iowa Republicans Chuck Grassley in the Senate, and Steve King in the House both voted against the measure.
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Grassley says the situation is improving, but ever so slightly.
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Grassley says Republicans in both chambers should have stuck together on their principals.
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{audio} images/stories/mp3/December 2015/Grassley spending3.MP3{/audio}
Proposed Egg Processing Plant Will Stop Construction
THOMPSON, Iowa (AP) – Construction on a proposed $92 million egg-processing facility in northern Iowa has been placed on hold because of a bird flu outbreak last spring.
Officials said Friday that the plant to be constructed in Thompson is on hold until further notice. The Forest City Summit (https://bit.ly/1meRBYy ) reports that the plant was designed to create 197 jobs and process eggs supplied from new egg production facilities.
Rembrandt Enterprises Inc. announced the project in February, two months before the bird flu outbreak. Egg producers, including Rembrandt, killed millions of chickens in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease.
The company said the bird flu left it with about half of its normal capacity, and that it expects that it will take 18 to 24 months to regain full production.
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