MLManley's MepoInc

House File 2458
Imposes a restriction on mowing within the rights-of-way and medians of interstates, primary highways, and secondary roads before July 15. The restriction applies to the Department of Transportation, counties, and private property owners. This is to maintain adequate nesting areas for native birds. Exceptions to the restriction are allowed for mowing areas within 200 yards of an inhabited dwelling; on rights-of-way within one mile of the corporate limits of a city; to promote native species of vegetation; to establish control of damaging insects, noxious weeds, or invasive plants; for visibility and safety reasons; and within rest areas, weigh stations, and wayside parks. Under the bill, a landowner retains the ability to harvest, in proper season, grass grown on the road along the landowner’s land, as long as the harvesting is done on or after July 15 and does not conflict with an integrated roadside vegetation management plan. The bill allows mowing within 200 yards of a home, and allows mowing for visibility and safety reasons, which can cover most situations such as along lanes and along county roads. There is a specific allowance for mowing around mailboxes and for other access purposes. Habitat for pheasants, quail, song birds, and bees has become limited in Iowa; this bill would help guide the best management of the habitat that is needed for the survival and successful reproduction of these animals. The intent of this bill is to protect those areas while still letting people mow where it is responsible to do so. 

LETTS, Iowa – (Muscatine Journal) Two Louisa-Muscatine School District students and two adults were taken to the hospital following a car and school bus collision Monday morning.

Capt. Dave Lerch of the Muscatine County Sheriff’s Office said the accident happened at 8:49 a.m. in the 260th block of Echo Avenue in rural Letts.

Pamela Hafner of rural Letts was leaving her driveway when she failed to notice – or failed to yield to – the southbound school bus, according to the sheriff’s office.

The vehicles collided head on, Lerch said. He said an air-care helicopter was summoned for Hafner, 52, but it did not arrive before she was taken by ambulance to Trinity-Muscatine Hospital.

Scott Grimes, superintendent of the L-M Community School District, said two students and the bus driver, Rodney Newcomb, 48, of Letts, were also taken to Trinity Muscatine.

Reports on the conditions of Hafner, Newcomb and the high school-age students, whose names were not immediately released, was not available this afternoon at the hospital.

” Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not something to be waited for; but rather something to be achieved.”

RepRodRoberts — April 25, 2010 — Conservative Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Rod Roberts fires up crowd in Fairfield at the Iowa GOP’s 2nd District Convention as he explains how he’ll take the State of Iowa in a new direction as its governor. Vote June 8!

Having a meeting with the phone company today about where they are going to lay the new fiber optic cable soon coming. Supposedly it will bring 100mbit/sec internet, cable tv, and better phone service to us out here in the “sticks”. So to that I say “Whoo Hoo!” ^MM