Gartner will lead committee charged with giving out millions

The man who used to be president of N-B-C news and who now owns the Iowa Cubs will head the board that will pick which Iowa cities get millions of dollars worth of state financing for cultural or sports attractions. Governor Vilsack has named Michael Gartner of Des Moines as chairman of the “Vision Iowa” board. Gartner is a former Des Moines Register Editor and he used to own the Ames Tribune. Gartner and a handful of investors bought the Iowa Cubs baseball club last season. He’ll head the 10-person board which will decide how to dole out the three-hundred-million dollars in state investments in major attractions. The other members of the board are from Sioux City, Davenport, Shenandoah, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Keokuk, Garner, Dubuque and Clinton. The other board members are: Marvin Berenstein of Sioux City, Mary Ellen Chamberlain of Davenport, Greg Connell of Shenandoah, Swati Dandekar of Cedar Rapids, Sharon Juon of Waterloo, Jerry Kearns of Keokuk, Dianne Paca of Garner, Brad Parks of Dubuque and LaMetta Wynn of Clinton.