UNI has extended the contract of Panther baseball coach Rick Heller. The new deal announced by AthleticDriector Rick Hartzell keeps Heller with the Panthers through 2007. Heller’s in his fifth season with the Panthers and has a 115-114-1 record. He’s led UNI to the conference tournament each of the last three years, including a tournament championship in 2001. Heller’s career mark is 406-308-4.
Iowa women look for road win at Northwestern
January 29, 2004 By
The Iowa Hawkeye women are on the road in the Big Ten tonight to take on Northwestern. The Hawks are 4-2 in conference play with all the wins coming at home. Iowa coach Lisa Bluder says they’re 0-2 on the road and the need those wins to be in the top half of the conference. Bluder’s team is riding a three-game win streak. She says they challenged the team to hold the opponents below their defensive average and field goal percentage, and she says they responded.Iowa is 10-7 overall.
County leaders lobby for full tax credit payment
January 29, 2004 By
County leaders came to the state capitol from all 99 Iowa counties today to urge lawmakers to fully fund local property-tax credits. Wappello County supervisor Mike Peterson says they fear if lawmakers try and balance the budget by eliminating funding for 160-million worth of property-tax credits, counties will have to raise property taxes — or cut public services. He says they might have to leave the county roads with no uniformed law enforcement patrols during the overnight hours, as their budget problems “can get very serious very fast.” Peterson says county managers would also have to cut services people take for granted. He says the last blizzard hit on a Sunday and plows were sent out to clear the roads but with funding cut they’d have to hold off on plowing during weekends, and perhaps only send plows out for emergency cases like getting someone to a hospital. Counties that don’t want to cut service would have to raise taxes, and Palo Alto County supervisor Lannie Miller says last year when the state underfunded the property-tax credits, some of the bill was shifted onto low-income elderly who couldn’t get tax credits they qualified for. He tells of a woman who called crying after she got her tax bill, because she couldn’t pay it — and he calls it a county problem the state has funded up till now. Miller asks why, if the state won’t fund the credits, they were ever put into place. Shell Rock State Representative Bill Dix says the fears of county leaders are premature. He says while lawmakers go about their work this session they’ll have to look at all options, and counties should not feel they’re being singled out. Representative Dix says he thinks the legislature can balance the state budget without touching local governments, but he says if the governor vetoes any parts of the budget they come up with…then property-tax credits may have to be on the table. Governor Vilsack told supervisors at the Iowa Association of Counties meeting last week that they should lobby legislators and get constituents to lobby them, for his tax proposal to be able to fully fund counties.
Legislator says it’s time to lose cruise reuirement of riverboats
January 29, 2004 By
A key legislator says it’s time to consider dumping the requirement that Iowa’s riverboat casinos cruise on the water. State law requires cruises for the floating casinos, but the State Racing and Gaming Commission established the specifics: the gambling boats must cruise at least once a day, for at least two hours, from April 1st to November 1st. Indiana and Illinois have removed cruising requirements for riverboat casinos in those states, and State Senator Mark Zieman of Postville says the cruising requirement is a huge expense. Zieman says cruises up and down the rivers — as well as around West Lake in Osceola — are “a big cost of operating,” especially at a time when the Coast Guard is considering new Homeland Security rules which may require even more security for boats that cruise the rivers. Zieman represents an area which has a floating casino, and he has another reason for hoping to tie the boats permanently to shore.Zieman says a closer connection with land — without establishing land-based casinos — would make it more difficult for the operations to cruise away to another state.
State asks you to check off beautification program
January 29, 2004 By
Most Iowans will be getting their W-2 forms in the mail within the next few days. The executive director of the Keep Iowa Beautiful campaign is asking people to keep that check-off in mind as they fill out their tax returns. Jerry Schnepf says Iowans can donate as little as one-dollar to the fund and he says every dollar helps. In its first year, 2001, the program netted 56-thousand dollars from the tax form check-offs, which helped ten communities launch beautification programs. Last year, it brought in 62-thousand dollars and the awards will be presented soon. He says 70-percent of the money is routed directly back toward local beautification programs, for which communities need to apply and compete. The other 30-percent goes toward statewide beautification efforts, largely things like litter prevention programs and other education efforts in schools to encourage more of an ethic in kids to care more about the land. He says communities all over the state have seen the benefits of the program in its first two years. Scott County used money for landscaping and planting, Burlington used the program to beautify the riverfront and Osceola created “Blooms and Brooms” to get volunteers active in cleaning up the streets. For more information, surf to “keepiowabeautiful.com” or call (515) 323-6507.
Report shows textbook costs go up twice the rate of inflation
January 29, 2004 By
Tuition isn’t the only college cost that’s been increasing — a new report shows the cost of college textbooks has also risen dramatically. Rose Garr of the Iowa Public Interest Research Group says it cost students and average of 900 dollars for textbooks in the 2003-2004 school year. She says a similar survey eight years ago found students paid 642 dollars for their textbooks. She says that’s a price increase at twice the rate of inflation over that time period. Garr believes publishers artificially inflate prices by pushing cheaper used books off the market with new, but barely different editions of textbooks. She says publishers also bundle the books with additional instructional materials such as cd-roms. Jeremy Strohman is the textbook manager at University Book And Supply near the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls. He says they do work with faculty to find out if bundles are necessary and if they only need the textbook. He says if stand-alone textbooks are available they order them. He says unfortunately the stand-alone is often not available, but he says they do try to find out if they’re necessary. Strohman says publishers set the standard price for textbooks. He says his store uses the national standard mark-up of 25 percent on textbooks. U-N-I student body president Amliano Lerna says the textbook pricing hits everyone. He says “not only students are being taken advantage of, it’s their families as well, and the future.” He says the higher the cost of public education goes, the less opportunities there are for the citizens of Iowa. Strohman says he doesn’t know how to get the publishers to change their tactics. Garr says calling attention to the problem is an important first step. She says it may take legislative action to bring about the necessary changes.
William Penn hires new football coach
January 29, 2004 By
Todd Hafner has been named the new head football coach at William Penn University. Hafner had been the head assistant coach at Emporia State in Kansas. The team finished 9-3 in the last two years.
