ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION
Students in the Citizens Police Academy learned about accident investigations last night.
John Kaskie, is a senior officer with the Le Mars Police Department, is trained as an accident investigator. He has lots of tools at his disposal to investigate serious accidents.
It takes some higher math skills to investigate serious injury or fatal accidents. Training in this specialty includes a lot of accident simulations.
Kaskie says the officers need some assistance to gather some of the technical information needed to investigate vehicle crashes.
Crash data retrieval boxes are a big help in the case of serious acicdents, and most cars have them.
Kaskie and Plymouth County Sheriff specialist Matt Struve demonstrated to the students how they investigate a serious accident, simulating a car-pedestrian accident.
GOP SUPERMAJORITY
Republicans have won 34 seats in the Iowa Senate, the first time in over 50 years there has been a supermajority in the Iowa Legislature. Jack Whitver is the G-O-P leader in the Senate.
In January, the Senate G-O-P will have the required 34 votes to confirm all state agency leaders and board and commission members Governor Kim Reynolds nominates — and Democrats cannot vote to block those appointments. Zach Wahls (like “walls”) — the Senate’s Democratic Leader — says his party faced national headwinds that will dissipate when Donald Trump’s influence in the G-O-P starts to wane.
Wahls said. Wahls says one bright spot for Democrats last (Tuesday) night was the defeat of Iowa Senate President Jake Chapman, a Republican from Adel. Republicans in the Iowa House appear to have added to their majority, although results in a few races were still unknown early this (Tuesday) morning.
Republicans have won 34 seats in the Iowa Senate, the first time in over 50 years there has been a supermajority in the Iowa Legislature House Speaker Pat Grassley says Republicans in the Iowa House currently represent all or part of 97 counties.
Iowa House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst (KON-first) says it’s time for Democratic to turn a page and use this election as motivation.
The 2023 legislative session begins Monday, January 9th.
RED WAVE
It was a red wave in Iowa last night. Election returns had Republicans winning all but one of the races for Congress. 89-year-old Chuck Grassley won an eighth term in the US Senate, defeating Sioux County native Mike Franken, with 57% of the vote.
Franken urged his supporters not to give up on politics.
Three of the four Congressional races went to the GOP – Randy Feenstra of Hull had the strongest victory among the four in the GOP-heavy 4th District. Incumbant Republicans Ashley Hinson and Marionette Miller-Meeks won in Districts 1 and 2. Republican Zach Nunn leads incumbent Democrat Cindy Axne in the 3rd District by 2-thousand votes. A winner has not been declared in that race, but Nunn has already claimed victory.
All but one of the major statewide races went to Republicans. Governor Kim Reynolds won an overwhelming victory over Deidre De Jear with 60% of the vote.
Secretary of State Paul Pate, Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig won with 60% majorities. Two long-time Democrats were defeated in their races last night. Roby Smith knocked off Incumbent State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald, and Brenna Bird defeated Tom Miller, the longest-serving Attorney General in the nation. Democrats won one statewide race. Incumbant Rob Sand was re-elected State Auditor by 3-thousand votes over Republican Todd Halbur.
An amendment to the Iowa Constitution concerning gun rights was approved by a two to one margin. Voters decided to include the right to keep and bear arms in the state constitution as a fundamental right. Before the vote, Iowa was one of a handful of states which did not include these rights in their constitutions.
Plymouth County candidates faced no opposition, and were all re-elected. They include Recorder Jolynn Goodchild, Treasurer Shelly Sitzmann, Attorney Darin Raymond, and Supervisors John Meis, Don Kass and Craig Anderson.
In Iowa legislative races, the GOP won a supermajority in the Senate, winning 34 of the 50 seats in that chamber. One of those Republican victories was in Sioux City, where former county supervisor Rocky De Witt of Lawton defeated incumbent Democrat Jackie Smith in Senate District 1. In District 7, Kevin Alons of Salix won, running unopposed. That district includes the southern half of Plymouth County. In House District 13, which includes that same portion of Plymouth County, Ken Carlson of Onawa defeated Libertarian Amy Janowski of Kingsley, in one of the few contested races in the area. In House District 3, Tom Jeneary of Le Mars was re-elected in a newly drawn district which includes northern Plymouth and southern Sioux Counties. In House District 4, Skyler Wheeler of Hull was re-elected, in a district which includes northern Sioux County and all of Lyon County. Both incumbents ran without opposition. In House District 5, Zachary Dieken, a state trooper from rural Granville, won election. He faced two other Republicans in the primary election.
Judges were up for retention – all were retained, whether for the Supreme Court, Appeals Court, or district court. Almost all of the votes were of uniform margins, roughly 3 to 1 in favor.
These include Roger Sailer – Patrick Tott – Steven Andreasen – James Daane – Jeffry Neary and Kristal Phillips in District 3B.
STORMS DISRUPT VOTING
Thunderstorms, lightning and rain caused a few problems with voting in western Iowa. Woodbury County Elections Commissioner, Pat Gill says the storms rolled through around noon, which was not good timing.
Gill says they didn’t have to make voters wait.
Gill says they’ve also had some voters going to the wrong precinct following changes made by the redistricting. He says they have been able to get everyone redirected to the right polling place. The polls close at 8 p-m.
SIOUX CITY STABBING
Sioux City Police have arrested the suspect wanted in a stabbing that took place Monday morning in Leeds.
37-year-old Faron (fair-un) Starr was taken into custody by officers outside of Unitypoint St. Luke’s around 3:20 p.m. and brought to police headquarters for questioning.
Police say a citizen spotted Starr in a car and called 9-1-1.
Starr was wanted for allegedly stabbing his former girlfriend at the residence located at 4540 Garfield Street.
The victim fled in a car to the Leeds Food and Fuel on Floyd Boulevard Monday morning and contacted police for help.
She was taken to Unity Point St.Luke’s with multiple stab wounds that were not life threatening.
