BLACK HAWK COUNTY, Iowa (KCRG) – A dangerous intersection in Black Hawk County is about to change after county supervisors voted to turn it into a four-way stop. The intersection is where Dubuque Road meets Canfield Road, a route used by thousands of drivers every day. AJ Youngblut lives next to the intersection along Dubuque Road. He says he’s seen car and truck crashes, and even rollovers. “You can’t drive as an offensive driver, you have to follow the rules and make sure everyone else is,” Youngblut said. Youngblut said he sees close calls daily. Drivers traveling east and west on Dubuque Road will have added stop signs and rumble strips. Black Hawk County Engineer Catherine Nicholas said the intersection sees the most crashes in the county. “We feel that there are now enough accidents if you look at the accident history in the last five years,” Nicholas said. This year, there have been five accidents at the intersection, including three in the summer. “Drivers get impatient, oftentimes they’re failing to yield,” Nicholas said. The change will cost the county about $15,000. Nicholas said that is millions of dollars cheaper than a roundabout. The county also plans to keep the speed limit at 55 miles per hour on both roads, even though a recent state law would allow 60. The changes are expected to happen in weeks. “It’s the best thing to try first,” Youngblut said.
DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – School closures and cuts to teacher positions are possible as the Iowa City Community School District works toward $13.8 million in spending reductions for fiscal year 2028. Interim Superintendent Amy Kortemeyer told the Iowa School Budget Review Committee on Wednesday there is “no easy answer” to addressing the district’s financial problems. Kortemeyer said the district is convening a committee to review school boundaries and consider school closures. The focus is on elementary schools, which leaders say have extra capacity after the district moved sixth graders to middle schools. When asked which staff positions could be considered for cuts, Kortemeyer said “any and all staff.” She said the goal is to keep reductions as far from classrooms as possible, but committee members questioned how realistic that would be given the size of the cuts. “I do believe there are some positions, as we contemplate what this looks like, that we do keep us a little bit farther away from the classroom than the actual classroom teachers, I am not saying it’s not going to impact our classroom teachers,” Kortemeyer said. “There’s some wiggle room there for us to be looking at other positions that are not directly impacting or working one-on-one on a day-to-day basis. Please don’t hear me say we’re not touching classroom teachers.” District leaders outlined improvements they have made since the financial crisis came to light. Committee members also pressed them on how the problems developed. Wednesday’s meeting in Des Moines was informational, and the committee took no action. It will report what it heard to the Iowa Department of Education in November.
DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird announced Wednesday that she is suing surveillance video company ADI Global Distribution Inc. The suit says ADI hid that the cameras manufacturers, Hikvision and Dahua, have close ties to the Chinese military. The suit says both camera makers are on a list of foreign entities that pose a national security risk to the United States. It says ADI has deceived Iowans for years by selling the products as their own brand. It also accuses Hikvision and Dahua of deliberately engineering “backdoor” security vulnerabilities into their cameras that can be exploited for eavesdropping or criminal activity. In a statement, Bird said “These China-made cameras are making Iowans’ private information — everything from where each room is in your home, who lives there, your routine, and even passwords — available to the Chinese government and military.” This is the second lawsuit by Bird this week against China-aligned companies.
WINTHROP, Iowa (KCRG) – The Independence Fire Department assisted in putting out a grain dryer fire in Winthrop on Wednesday morning. The fire broke out in the 100 block of Madison Street around 8:43 a.m. Ladders and tankers were positioned to help flow water onto the structure. Crews were at the scene for five hours before the fire was extinguished. No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.