Gazette Daily News Podcast, January 3

This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Tuesday, January 3.

It'll likely rain for the first half of Tuesday. According to the National Weather Service there will likely be rain before 1 p.m., with a slight chance of rain between 1 and 4 p.m. Otherwise it will be mostly cloudy with a high near 48 degrees. Winds of 5 to 10 mph could gust as high as 25 mph. Rain chances will dwindle and winds will calm a bit Tuesday night, with a low around 30 degrees.

The Hamburg Inn is not closing despite what its staff reported last week to the public, an attorney for the owner said Monday.

“There are no plans to close the restaurant,” said Kim Baer, a Des Moines attorney who represents Hamburg Inn owner, Michael Lee. “In fact, his plans are just the exact opposite.”

Hamburg Inn managers told media outlets, including The Gazette, the restaurant was closing because the building in the Northside Neighborhood needed repairs and they couldn’t make contact with Lee, who is in Taiwan.

Baer said miscommunication caused staff to think the restaurant was closing.

“They are making some updates and repairs, so they have had limited hours,” she said. “Unfortunately, that somehow was construed as an intent to close the restaurant permanently, which is not the intent.”

The man who was found dead, along with his 3 dogs, after a house fire in North LIberty last week has been identified.

Stuart James Netolicky, 44, was found dead last Tuesday, according to his obituary, after crews were called to a fire at 95 Gulf View Court. The North Liberty Fire Department said the fire was just inside the front door of the home. After they extinguished it, they found a man and three dogs dead inside. The cause of the fire has not been released yet.

Netolicky, who graduated from City High in Iowa City in 1997 and was an Eagle Scout, was employed at the Hy--Vee gas station on Crosspark Road in Coralville, his obituary said.

“Stuart was well liked and would do anything to help others,” his obituary said.

Among his loves in life were old cars, and his dogs, his obituary said.

There is much at stake as the state of Iowa continues to cement in state law the merger of three state departments — human services, public health and aging — into one mega-department: the new Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.

The shift will affect over 5,000 state workers, more than $2 billion in state funding, which is more than a quarter of the state budget, along with millions of Iowans impacted by the services offered.

More legislation will be required to continue the merger.

State lawmakers set the legislative process in motion during last year’s session, in which they established a framework for the merger and created new benchmarks for the newly formed department to reach before its official first day on July 1.

That work will continue in the 2023 session of the Iowa Legislature, which begins next Monday.