May 16, 2012

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Congressman King still wants fence on border

May 16, 2006 By

Congressman Steve King advocates building a concrete wall along the U.S./Mexico border and while he’s supporting President Bush’s plan to send six-thousand National Guard troops to secure that two-thousand mile border, King would prefer full-time military people on that duty rather than part-time Guard soldiers. “Sending our guard down there is a last-ditch effort here,” King says.

King visited with guard troops along the border last year and he believes that if troops are deployed they need to have weapons which those guard soldiers did not have. King just spent three days along the Arizona/Mexico border with border patrols and Native Americans policing a strip of the border, a trip that King says persuaded him the chain-link fence he had envisioned as a means of securing the border wouldn’t be enough.

King says he sat along the border in the dark and listened to the illegal immigrants cross into the U.S. “We’re not going to be able to stop that traffic if we don’t build a wall,” he says. King estimates a concrete wall would cost a lot less in the long run. “I’ve spent my life in the construction business and we’ve poured a fair amount of concrete and it looks to me like we’re asking for 6 billion dollars to defend our southern border for the 2007 year and that comes to 3 million dollars a mile,” King says. “I am very confident that we can built a good, solid barrier of a concrete-style wall for far less than 3 million dollars a mile, we can build four-lane interstates for that kind of money.”

King rejects critics who say this is a country that tears down walls rather than builds walls. King says it would be a wall to keep people out, not like the Berlin Wall that kept people in the former Soviet republic of East Germany.

King, who is a Republican like the president, believes last night’s presidential address was an attempt by President Bush to build support in congress for his proposal to let “guest workers” get on a track to legal U.S. citizenship. “I think the president’s out of touch with the America people on this issue and out of touch with the party as well,” King says.

King says only nine percent of Americans support the president’s border security policy and only 13 percent believe the president’s overall immigration policy is on track. The Republican-led U.S. House is with the American people, according to King, because they’ve passed a bill that would make it a felony to be in the country illegally.

King says senators are “deluding themselves” if they think they can “pander” to both sides in the immigration debate. “The American people are not going to fall for that,” King says. King suggests that President Bush should spent the remaining two-and-a-half years of his term securing the border and let the next president devise new immigration policy.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With:

Western Iowa man reaches plea in sexual assault case

May 16, 2006 By

The father of accused western Iowa child pornographer Brian Street has pleaded no-contest to one-count of child abuse. According to Clay County, Nebraska District Court records, Frank Street had been charged with sexually assaulting his granddaughters, Tracy and Jessica Dyess. During the plea agreement, those charges plus one additional count of child abuse, were dismissed.

The no-contest plea reached in court, pertains to the physical abuse of a seven-year old boy who was living in the home of Frank and Diane Street.

The court found Street guilty of intentionally committing child abuse without injury. He faces five-years in prison if found guilty. Street’s son Brian is awaiting a June 12-th Federal trial in Davenport, on pornography charges.

His step-daughter Tracy is serving a 45-year prison term for setting a fire to the family’s home in Griswold in March of 2005. The fire — set in attempt to kill Brian for years of sexual molestation — resulted in the deaths of Tracy’s younger siblings.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Soldier’s wife plays "Deal or No Deal"

May 16, 2006 By

It was one too many times saying “no deal” for the wife of a Mason City Marine currently serving in Iraq on last night’s edition of the N-B-C game show “Deal or No Deal.”

Renee Stokes, the wife of Marine Staff Sergeant and Mason City native Justin Stokes, had passed up offers of more than $100-thousand and a new $18- thousand Harley-Davidson motorcycle in hopes of maybe winning $500-thousand, but Renee finally had to settle for $28-thousand. It still ended up being a good deal, since the amount in the briefcase she had chosen at the start of the game was only $10.

Justin Stokes appeared on the program via satellite from Fallujah, Iraq, and his parents Judy and Jerry Stokes of Mason City also appeared on the program.

Filed Under: Human Interest, Military

Senator says President’s border plan has merit

May 16, 2006 By

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says there is merit to President Bush’s plan to put six-thousand National Guard members on the U.S. border with Mexico to help stop the flood of illegal immigrants. Grassley says to ensure we can help those who want to come to this country within the letter of the law, we first must halt the flow of lawbreakers.

Grassley says “Americans have always welcomed millions of legal immigrants every year. New Americans strengthen the fabric of our society. To show respect for all those who emigrate legally, we need to secure the borders against illegal immigration and enforce these laws, so I’m willing to give serious consideration to the president’s suggestions for border security.” Iowa has about 11-hundred Guard members on active duty, most of them in Iraq, with another seven-thousand or so available for duty in the state or elsewhere.

Grassley says he’s not concerned the War on Terror is stretching some states’ guard units too thin, in addition to this new border control mission. Grassley says “Six-thousand at a time, out of 400-thousand people that are in the guard, is not a significant number to detract from any natural disasters or local law enforcement that guards might be needed for elsewhere in the United States.” He says there are other ideas afloat to make the border control mission even more practical.

Grassley suggests guard members make the border duty part of their regular two-week training every summer, so it wouldn’t cost the taxpayers any more than usual. He says “Congress has a duty to pass comprehensive immigration reform, but as we found out in 1986, amnesty is not the answer. When I voted for the 1986 immigration reform bill we had one to two million illegal immigrants. Today we have nearly 12 million illegal immigrants. Obviously, it didn’t work then and I have a hard time believing that it will work now.”

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Fallen police officers remembered

May 16, 2006 By

Law enforcement agencies in Iowa are joining those across the nation this week to honor fallen comrades and in the Waterloo area they’ll remember two cops who were killed 25 years ago in a case that drew statewide attention.

Black Hawk County peace officers will gather today (Tuesday) in Evansdale for a memorial service to honor 11 area officers who’ve been killed in the line of duty over the years, including the two Waterloo cops who were shot and killed by James “T-Bone” Taylor in 1981.

There was a huge, week-long manhunt for Taylor and Evansdale Police Chief Michael Burke remembers it well. Burke says there are still some officers on-duty in the area who arrived at the scene of the cops’ slaying and others who participated in the manhunt. He says each officer will have a distinct memory of the manhunt.

Chief Burke still has strong feelings about the case. “I was on that particular manhunt. I can remember it like it was yesterday,” Burke says. “I think it’s all too important that officers who have made this ultimate sacrifice are not forgotten, that we do remember them every year and remember the families that also suffered those losses.”

Burke will read the names of the two officers Taylor killed, as well as the nine others from Black Hawk County who’ve died in uniform. Burke calls it a “time out” to remember the service and sacrifice of the fallen officers. Waterloo cops Michael Wayne Hoing and Wayne Rice were killed by “T-Bone” Taylor on July 13th, 1981. This is National Police Memorial Week. One-hundred-32 Iowa lawmen have died in the line of duty since Iowa became a state.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Verizon cutting 25 jobs in Grinnell

May 16, 2006 By

The Verizon Telephone Company is eliminating 25 jobs in Grinnell. Verizon spokesman Bill Kula says the employees that’re being cut are in the company’s fraud prevention center. He says some of the employees provide fraud prevention by looking at calling patterns to try and spot abuse, and they also look for scams.

Kula says the employees provide the service for long distance customers and their jobs will be moved. He says they’re outsourcing the work to other third party centers in other parts of the country.

Kula says the company will retain approximately 40 employees who do the same service in the former G-T-E section of the company that serves local callers. Kula says the workers will probably be retained into the fall and will receive a severance package based on their years of service.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: ,

Former CIETC boardmembers say don’t blame us

May 16, 2006 By

Two former board members of a job-training agency on Monday told lawmakers that board got complacent, but said it’s unfair to blame them for the salary scandal that came to light this spring at the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium.

Des Moines City Councilman Tom Vlassis said “My understanding of my job was to basically be a rubber stamp.” Vlassis says there are two kinds of boards — those that are small and hands-on, and ones that are large and hands-off, and he says the board of CIETC was the latter kind.

Vlassis says from time to time, the board did ask questions, mainly about things like service contracts and how many people would be served, or the cost per client. Vlassis says he wasn’t on the board to micro-manage. “It becomes a matter of trust,” Vlassis says, “and I trusted the people… running the organization. Apparently that trust may have been misplaced.”

Polk County Supervisor John Mauro (morrow), another CIETC board member, says they didn’t know about big bonuses or they would have put a stop to them. “If you’re askin’ me to be responsible for what happened here, it’s not fair, and it’s not fair to the CIETC board. Where was the Workforce Development?” he asked.

Mauro says pointing a finger at the board isn’t fair, since after two private audits the state still didn’t give the board so much as “a wink” to indicate there was something wrong. He says even the federal government didn’t want to talk about it, so he doesn’t know how the board could be expected to see there was something wrong. Mauro says nobody realized there were such generous bonuses being paid out, and if the board had, they would have been halted immediately.

Mauro has a nephew who works for CIETC but says he wasn’t on the board when his relative was hired. “Did I ask some of these people to go apply? No,” Mauro declared. He says if they called and asked if they could use his name, he said yes. The CIETC board has resigned and members replaced by new ones.

Lawmakers probing the lack of oversight that allowed three program heads to claim 1-point-8-million dollars in 30 months say there should have been more oversight. Mauro says he had a responsibility as a board member and elected official. “Did I do the job I should have did?” he asks, answering “Evidently I wasn’t paying attention because it happened. That’s hard for me to say, and I’m not proud about it at all.”

Mauro and Vlassis testified Monday before the legislature’s Government Oversight Committee, which continues to hold hearings on the scandal.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With:
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