✌️Put two together: It's Tuesday.

🌤️ Today's weather: Mostly sunny, with a high of 84 and a low of 68.

🎂 Happy birthday to our member Dick Murphy!

Today's newsletter is 872 words — a 3.5-minute read.

Polk County could get a five-person cold case unit under a proposal that will go before supervisors today.

Why it matters: It could bring dedicated attention to more than 100 cold cases identified in Polk County in 2024.

Catch up quick: The sheriff has previously relied on retired officers volunteering to revisit old cases.

State of play: Each of the five specialists would be paid about $31 an hour and budgeted for up to 500 hours annually.

• The estimated cost is about $90,000 this fiscal year, rising to around $95,000 in subsequent years.

Context: Some local law enforcement agencies already have dedicated cold case staff.

• Cedar Rapids police's unit, for example, helped secure a 2024 murder conviction for the 2007 killing of Dennis First, a 64-year-old man who was stabbed and beaten in his apartment.

Inside the room: Polk's request comes as the county prepares for tighter budgets, with a new Iowa law that generally caps growth in city and county general property tax revenue at 2%.

• The sheriff's office annual budget is currently around $102 million.

The fine print: The unit wasn't included in the county's adopted budget and would require a budget amendment.

• County documents don't specify where the money will come from or whether other spending would be reduced.

What they're saying: Sheriff Kevin Schneider said in 2024 that his office didn't have the resources to pay for a dedicated cold case team and welcomed help from the state, which was launching its own unit.

What we're watching: Which cases will receive priority and how the new team will coordinate with other departments on cases such as that of Johnny Gosch, a West Des Moines paperboy who went missing in 1982.

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Polk County may spend nearly $371,000 over three years to help a volunteer-run Des Moines food pantry build a paid staff and provide more reliable evening service.

Why it matters: The investment would test whether county funding can help Knock and Drop Iowa (KADI) meet growing demand without creating permanent dependence on public support.

Driving the news: The Polk County Board of Supervisors will vote this morning on an agreement that would provide KADI with funding for approximately 100 paid staffing hours per week and would require maintaining at least five part-time employees.

Catch up quick: Zuli Garcia founded KADI in 2020 as a grassroots response to pandemic-era food insecurity, initially delivering food from her garage to Latino families across central Iowa.

• The effort evolved into a nonprofit that offers culturally specific food assistance and other community services, initially operating a pantry at the former Franklin Junior High.

State of play: KADI now operates its food pantry at the Polk County Northside Community Center, at 3010 Sixth Ave.

Zoom in: Garcia says its evening experiment showed substantially higher demand.

By the numbers: The agreement would run through June 2029 and require KADI to maintain 4-7pm hours Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

• It currently calls for three-hour daytime windows Monday, Thursday and Friday, though KADI can adjust those hours.
• Paid staff would handle intake, stocking, food safety and volunteer coordination, while volunteers would continue to assist, Garcia says.

Catch up quick: This is Polk County's second major new multiyear hunger-relief investment this year.

• In March, supervisors approved nearly $667,000 over three years to help Caring Hands Outreach Center expand food-rescue operations, including deliveries to the county's River Place pantry.
• That deal similarly sought to help a heavily volunteer-driven nonprofit build capacity using county funds and eventually operate without ongoing county support.

What's next: Garcia says KADI would use the three-year period to measure demand and diversify funding through grants, donors, corporate sponsors and other partnerships, rather than permanently depend on county support.

✏️ A Florida-based charter school network plans to build a school in Ankeny and restore a historic one-room schoolhouse on the site. (Business Record)

🔺 The Iowa State Fair's overall attendance this year was 1,218,834, just over 36,000 more than the previous record set in 2024. (WHO-TV)

⛔️ Des Moines would stop offering new tax abatements at year's end under a proposal the City Council will consider Sept. 14. (Council documents)

Last night was the last 8pm sunset we'll have for about 240 days.

By the numbers: Sunset drops to 7:58pm today and doesn't get back to 8pm until April 20, 2027.

Read more

🗳️ What we're watching after yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling: Whether Iowa election officials face new federal requirements for verifying mail-in ballots — and how quickly courts clarify what states must actually do.

This newsletter was edited by Chloe Gonzales.