Bike Rodeo in Perry Saturday
Bike Month continues in Perry and families are invited to come celebrate Saturday in the Perry Hy-Vee parking lot.
The Dallas County Hospital, Perry Police Department and Perry Hy-Vee are partnering together for a Bike Rodeo Saturday from 11am until 2pm.
Cyclists of all ages are welcome to come pick up a free bicycle helmet, learn some safety tips and register their bicycle.
Bob Wilson with the Perry Area Chamber of Commerce says events like this are why bike month is so important.
“This is an exciting month because our small town buys in so hard to this great month, to promote cycling and not only the fun that it is but it’s a health benefit as well. We have this great infrastructure of in town trails and obviously the Raccoon River Valley Trail, we need to celebrate it. We need to use (the trails) as much as we can.”
If you’d like more information on this or other Bike Month events, call the McCreary Community Building at 465-5621.
Dallas County Supervisors Declare State of Emergency for the Bird Flu
The Dallas County Board of Supervisors has issued a state of emergency in regards to the bird flu.
Thursday afternoon the Supervisors passed a resolution that authorizes the Board Chairman to issue orders of road closures and/or embargos.
The resolution states: “The movement or transport of any poultry or poultry waste products is hereby prohibited within 1 mile of any poultry facility. This prohibition shall not apply to a poultry facility moving or transporting on or near its own facility.”
It is important to note that there are no reports of the Avian Flu in Dallas County at this time, and the public and their food supply is not currently at risk.
Emergency Management Coordinator Barry Halling says Dallas County authorities are working in cooperation with local area producers, cooperatives and state officials to implement a preventative plan, in an attempt to stop the spread of the bird flu.
The Board urges farm and backyard flock owners to protect their birds from exposure to wild waterfowl and other types of poultry. Owners should also avoid sharing equipment between sites and restrict visitors to their farms. Anyone who notices sick birds or an unusual death is asked to contact their local veterinarian.
The Dallas County Secondary Roads Department may place barricades near local poultry facilities in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease.
Halling says the County has been in contact with the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department, State Department of Transportation, State Agriculture and Iowa Department of Public Health officials and they believe the actions they are taking at this time are in the best economical interest of the County.
DOT Grant to Pay for 1st and Willis Safety Improvements in Perry
A busy intersection in Perry will soon be revamped to include more safety features.
The Perry City Council accepted a $380,000 Traffic Safety Improvement Program (TSIP) grant from the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) at their meeting Monday.
City Administrator Butch Niebuhr says they were fortunate to get the grant, which will cover all costs related to improvements to the intersection of Willis Avenue and 1st Street, or Highway 144, near downtown Perry.
“It had to do with a lot of information that the police especially, and our dispatchers and what they put down to give us the history of that intersection, the history of collisions and wrecks. We actually had a pedestrian fatality at that location, so all of that information we got together made us competitive.”
Niebuhr says the preliminary plan, which was prepared by City Engineers with Bolton and Menk, has been approved and now it’s on to the next step of putting together the final plan before the DOT goes out for bid later this summer.
“There’s not a lot of construction or deconstruction that’s going to go on, but if we do tear up that intersection we don’t want to tear it up again. We’ll probably be doing some planning, maybe putting some conduits in since we will be putting new conduits in for the traffic light. There will probably be a time when the lights actually aren’t working, so it will be a four-way stop, which sometimes is interesting. People will just have to bear with us for a while and it shouldn’t be too long.”
Niebuhr says the engineers predict it will be a six to eight week project once it gets started and the intersection should be finished before snow falls later this year.
Wet Start to May in the Raccoon River Valley
The month of May is off to a wet start in the Raccoon River Valley.
According to the National Weather Service, Perry has already received 1.1 inches of rain this past week. Jefferson has had just over three-quarters of an inch and 0.6 inch fell over Guthrie Center since our last report.
Normal rainfall totals for the month are around 4.7 inches in Perry, just over 4.5 inches in Jefferson and more than five inches in Guthrie Center.
More rain is expected early next week.
Senator Chapman Concerned About Rising Cost of Medicaid
As our state lawmakers work to finalize the budget, there are several things for them to consider but not all aspects of it are in their control.
District 10 State Senator Jake Chapman says he’s especially concerned about the cost of Medicaid. This year alone, Chapman says the state is responsible for paying an additional $220 million for Medicaid expenses.
“And the reason why it’s going up is not necessarily because we’re adding more people, but because the federal government determines, though a calculation called (the State Matching Percentage), how much federal dollars we get back. Well if they cut that, which they have and they’ve continually done that year after year to us, the State of Iowa has to pick up that balance.”
Chapman says when that number exceeds what your revenue growth is, it’s very problematic and cuts into the ability to fund things like education, health and human services and mental health. Plus, he says it doesn’t encourage states to be fiscally responsible.
“Because we’re doing better as a state, because we’re responsible and have economic growth, they in some ways penalize us by reducing that dollar amount. So it’s really unfortunate because it’s telling folks that we should be irresponsible with our money. We don’t have to look too far, to places like Michigan and California and those places, where they’re getting more money in federal dollars because they’re irresponsible with taxpayer money.”
Senator Chapman says he doesn’t see this issue improving until the federal government recognizes it as a problem and addresses it.