Gazette Daily News Podcast, March 30

The rain that started with thunderstorms Tuesday night is likely to continue into Wednesday. According to the National Weather Service it will be cloudy with a high near 56 degrees. There will be a 60 percent chance of precipitation with new rainfall amounts between a quarter and a half of an inch possible. There could be more rain Wednesday night, with it potentially turning into snow Thursday morning.

Republicans in the Iowa Senate passed a bill that is intended to reform Iowa’s 5-cent bottle deposit bill, a goal that has long been discussed but has met with repeated futility.

The Senate Republican plan, which passed with a 31-18 vote Tuesday with only Republican votes, would triple the fee paid to redemption centers in the hopes of encouraging more to open. The idea is that more redemption centers would allow grocery stores flexibility to opt out of the program as a place to accept returned bottles and cans.

Democrats in the Senate contend that this reform bill will not work as intended, and will instead lead to the end of the popular recycling incentive program in the state if redemption centers do not appear to fill the void.

Another version of bottle deposit reform is being discussed in the Iowa House, and it would be up to Republicans in both branches to see if they can work out their differences between the two versions.

A new elementary school will be built on the annex of Arthur Elementary School, and the Arthur and Garfield Elementary School attendance areas will be combined, the Cedar Rapids school board voted late on Monday.

The school board approved the next steps in the facilities master plan for the Cedar Rapids Community School District, including closing Arthur Elementary and Garfield Elementary and opening a new school in the fall of 2024.

Harrison and Madison elementary school attendance zones also will be combined by fall of 2025. District officials are still considering two options for how to do this: either by renovating the existing Harrison Elementary building or building on the property of Madison Elementary

Each new elementary school will serve between 500 to 600 students. Right now, elementary schools vary in student population, serving between 200 to 500 students, creating an unequal distribution of resources.

A woman who lived in the Meskwaki settlement in east-central Iowa was fatally mauled by a pack of dogs Monday according to tribal police.

The Meskwaki Nation Police Department said in a Facebook post that the mauling happened Monday afternoon, describing the incident as a “vicious attack" by a large pack of dogs that killed a young woman in the area of Springs Road.

All the dogs were later identified and killed., according to police. The unincorporated settlement of Meskwaki is about 3 miles northwest of Tama and about 50 miles west of Cedar Rapids.

Support for this news update was provided by New Pioneer Food Co-op. Celebrating 50 years as Eastern Iowa’s destination for locally and responsibly sourced groceries with stores in Iowa City, Coralville and Cedar Rapids; and you can order online through Co-op Cart at newpi.coop.