On the last day of February, far northeast Iowa got some snow. The divide between Arlington, which had nothing, and Clermont, which had light flakes, was stark.
The weather added some flavor to pictures I took at Montauk, the historic mansion of Iowa Gov. William Larrabee. At the Clermont Opera House, a lecture was given about archaeological excavations at the Montauk site.
We knew it was coming, and now it’s here. Construction on the first roundabout in Tama County starts this week. It’s at the intersection of US 63 and Business 30 in Toledo.
Stage 1A, according to the DOT’s press release, involves closing US 63 between the west Casey’s entrance and Business 30. This is the first stage because it includes building a culvert. Traffic for both directions of 63 will be detoured onto Business 30, Broadway Street, and 2nd Avenue.
There are six stages/substages, according to the June 2025 letting for the project. There will also be portions of construction that will close Business 30.
(I am just now noticing that the letting document misspells the sign “Turning taffic ahead” planned for Broadway Street. We’ll see if that happens in the field!)
It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a retransmission dispute, but there’s two of them going on, and one may be severed permanently.
Five Gray Media (formerly Gray TV) stations serving Iowa were pulled off Dish on March 10: KCRG, KTIV, KWQC, KYOU, and WOWT. The Des Moines Register article March 11 omitted WOWT, presumably because the reporter did not think it was a station for Iowa, but we know better.
Gray’s press release says Dish “insisted that Gray agree to a materially adverse provision in the new agreement that is unlike any provision in any distribution agreement with Gray’s roughly 400 other distribution partners, and, to Gray’s knowledge, unprecedented in the several decade history of the pay-TV industry across any cable or DBS operator and any broadcaster.”
Dish’s press release says Gray “is utilizing its market dominance to demand ‘retransmission consent’ fee hikes that are disconnected from the reality of declining viewership.”
Whoever you want to believe, in the end, prices for Dish subscribers will go up…
…unless negotiations are cut off entirely, as appears to have happened with the streaming network Fubo and NBC. All NBC stations were pulled from Fubo last Nov. 21 and haven’t been back, and by multiple reports on the Internet, won’t be coming back. It’s all about pricing, and with a slight twist — Disney, which also owns big-city ABC stations, owns Fubo. Fubo already had imposed a different regulation on all Disney stations and ABC affiliates that wasn’t set on others — you can’t watch if you have a dual monitor setup. (That one’s from personal experience.)
NuCara Pharmacy in Traer, which for a long time was Wright Pharmacy, is closing forever today. The NuCara pharmacies in Conrad, Ackley, and Zearing are also closing.
This is not, or at least not directly, related to Traer’s loss of the doctor’s office kitty-corner from the pharmacy last year. In fact, there’s a new tenant moving into the clinic in the next few weeks. Instead, it’s related to the pharmacy’s owner 1) being sold to the owner of Medicap Pharmacy and/or 2) being sued by the state of Iowa for $22 million.
According to the North Tama Telegraph story, the chain is blaming pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for low reimbursement rates. According to an Iowa Capital Dispatch story two weeks ago, “the State of Iowa alleges the company has repeatedly failed to make millions in monthly payments due to the state under a contract with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.”
A tip from a reader led to this bombshell printed in the Eagle Grove Eagle: Nineteen Iowa weekly newspapers are at immediate risk of closing. Their owner, Mid-America Publishing, sent a message to employees that the company “will shut down after years of financial strain driven by a deteriorating business climate and rising costs.”
“We regret to inform you that Mid-America Publishing will be ceasing all operations,” company president Matthew Grohe said in the statement published in the Eagle. “This is a sad day for us and for everyone.” The company’s final day will be April 2, according to the article, which also says that will be the Eagle’s last print day unless a buyer is found.
Seven county seats — not counting Forest City, although the Buffalo Center Tribune relocated there just last year — will lose their newspapers. At least six counties will be down to one newspaper, often on the periphery of the county, and Ida County is on track to become the first in Iowa without a print newspaper. Just last year, a study from Northwestern University found that Iowa was by far the largest state, county-wise, to have a paper in every county.
Dozens of Iowa towns that made Mid-America newspapers their official newspapers will lose that outlet. So will school districts. The Iowa House Local Government Committee a few weeks ago advanced a bill that initially was going to remove all requirements for publishing public notices in newspapers, but that section was removed by the time it got to the House floor. I fear that if Mid-America goes under and the papers aren’t bought, that bill could have less opposition the next time around.
Some of the Mid-America newspapers’ websites had become sporadic in posting stories online. For example, the Eldora Newspapers website is only up-to-date on obits and the e-edition scroll, while all news and sports stop in fall 2025. A few papers were migrated to subdomains under midamerica.news.
In addition to communities losing a reliable source of news, they and we are at risk of losing reliable sources of the past: the newspaper online archives, which will only be fractionally available and only as long as the domain names hold out (How do you go behind the paywall of a defunct publication?), and the bound volumes, which in the case of the Eagle and Wright County Monitor are waiting in a now-shuttered office to be bought “for a reasonable cost.”
(So I can put emojis in headlines. Interesting.)
The second diverging diamond exit of three for the Cedar Rapids area opened Monday, KCRG reports.
The Tower Terrace Road exit on the far north side of the metro has been open a while. The airport exit on the far south side is under construction.
Coming south from the new Boyson onramp, the concrete abruptly ends as space that was planned for three lanes cuts to two. To get a full six lanes (three in both directions), either the Emmons Street bridge has to be replaced or it’s going to be a really tight squeeze. Replacement of the bridge is not in the five-year plan.
Enrollment at public schools in Iowa dropped by the most in four decades, both numerically and percentage wise, and the Iowa Department of Education seriously underplayed it. There was so much to write about from that angle, in fact, that I concentrated on it for a full story and saved district-specific enrollment notes for later.
After the story was published, files on the Iowa DOE’s website were modified to eliminate an error: Choice Charter School is in the town of Union, not the Union school district. I get results!
Despite having its financial situation profiled in the media, Bobby’s Grocery and BBQ in Dysart couldn’t find a way forward. The North Tama Telegraph reported earlier this month that the store is closing.
In addition to problems with equipment that took out inventory, partially due to storm-induced blackouts, the main culprit is the Dollar General store that opened five years ago.
Beth Howard’s documentary “PIEOWA,” about the history and social connections of pie in Iowa, was shown at the Gladbrook Theater last month.
It was berry, berry good.
It was in Gladbrook because Laura Bru, “The Pie Lady,” is one of the pie makers featured in the film
(Happy Pi Day, in advance!)
Back-to-back press releases from the Iowa DOT indicate two construction projects in Black Hawk County will start March 23.
The US 218 bridge in La Porte City, between the four-way stop and the north side of town, is going to be replaced. Traffic will not be detoured. There will be alternating one-way paths controlled by stoplights.
Pavement on US 20 between IA 58 (Hudson Road) and US 63 is going to be replaced in both directions. It’s very likely that it’s still the 1986 concrete with various patching, and now both sets of lanes will be torn up.
