Three of the eight citizen-led South Dakota ballot questions approved for circulation will meet the signature threshold to make the ballot, according to a South Dakota News Watch analysis.
The measures most likely to make the ballot are two constitutional amendments. One would legalize abortion and the other would establish open primaries. The initiated measure would eliminate South Dakota’s sales tax on groceries. Legal challenges could still impact ballot access.
The 2024 ballot will also include a legislative resolution to change outdated male-only references to South Dakota’s governor and other officials in the state constitution, and Senate Joint Resolution 501, which is an effort to impose work requirements for Medicaid eligibility.
A project led by Iowa State University researchers has been selected for award negotiations with the goal of building the first “microgrid” in a rural Iowa community.
https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2024/02/26/microgrid
The proposal calls for a federal investment of roughly $9.5 million and a local cost-share of $2.4 million from university and Montezuma sources.
The project would transform the generation and distribution of electricity in Montezuma. It is a town of about 1,400 residents located 70 miles east of Des Moines.
The project will create a utility-scale microgrid to provide reliable, resilient and affordable electricity. The new system would feature power generation from solar panels and a battery storage system.
The project would also replace aging substations, load monitoring and control systems and provide the town with its first two electric vehicle chargers. It will take about four years to complete.
The city of Cedar Falls has put the wheels in motion on an affordable housing nonprofit. The initiative could unlock almost a quarter million dollars in state aid.
Cedar Falls is one of the last communities in Iowa not to have an affordable housing trust fund. The city council moved forward based on a housing assessment late last year.
It would allow the local government to access about 200 thousand dollars of state aid for rehab and development.
Brian Schoon is the Executive Director of the Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments. He says the nonprofit will mainly focus on driving living costs down.
They’re going to have to look at projects that would be categorized as the affordability side of things. That was one of the things that jumped up in the housing needs assessment was the cost of housing, the cost of land, and the cost of development.
The nonprofit hopes to be made official by January of 2025.
University of Northern Iowa Interim Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby was formally inducted into the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame in recognition of his lifetime achievements at a Friday event in St. Louis.
https://insideuni.uni.edu/campus-community/bob-bowlsby-inducted-missouri-valley-conference-hall-fame
The Waterloo, Iowa native has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in collegiate sports after honing his skills as UNI’s Athletic Director from 1983-91. He was inducted into the University of Northern Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004 and currently serves as a member of the steering committee for UNI’s $300 million Our Tomorrow campaign.
Bowlsby served as UNI's Assistant Director of Athletics for Facilities from 1981-83 before replacing Stan Sheriff as Athletics Director, directing UNI's 19-sport program and serving as administrative head of the UNI-Dome.
Bowlsby arrived at Stanford after a 15-year stint as the Director of Athletics for the University of Iowa. In his final four years, he guided and supervised the merger of the Hawkeye men’s and women’s athletic departments that included 24 varsity sports. In addition, he oversaw the planning, construction and renovation of more than $100 million in campus projects at Iowa, including the refurbishing of Kinnick Stadium.
Visitors will enjoy more than $1 million of recent upgrades to state park and recreation areas in the Panhandle this summer, according to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
These state park system projects and more largely have been funded by Capital Maintenance Funds, which were established by the Nebraska Legislature to help preserve Nebraska’s public outdoor recreation facilities and parklands; other state and federal funding sources; and Nebraska Game and Parks’ funds generated from user fees of the state park system.
https://outdoornebraska.gov/about/press-events/news/
