Mike Blouin called Chet Culver at about 11 o’clock this evening and conceded the race for the Democratic party’s gubernatorial nomination.
Johnson County turn-out high due to local race
June 6, 2006 By
While voter participation in today’s primary election has been reported as light in most of Iowa, turn-out has been high in the Iowa City area according to Johnson County Auditor Tom Slockett. “We had a record number of early votes and we have the second-highest turn-out on record,” Slockett says. There are strong local races for the Johnson County Board of Supervisors and for County Attorney. Sixty-seven-year-old Johnson County Attorney J. Patrick White has held that office since 1983, but did not seek re-election and the County Auditor says there’s been a hot race to replace White.
Pay problems unearthed in mid-May IWD report still unresolved
June 6, 2006 By
Key state officials say some of the pay problems in the Iowa Workforce Development agency that were identified in a mid-May report are still unresolved.
Iowa Department of Administrative Services director Molly Anderson says they’re sorting through paperwork and trying to determine if some workers are due the pay they’ve been getting. “Whenever you employ 19,000 people…you have a huge job of getting everybody’s classification right, ensuring that everybody is properly hired, that all promotions and pay actions are documented in the way that you want,” Anderson says. “This is not the first time that something like this has occured…Keep the scope of this in mind, that this is a small number that were found in a department that employs a lot of people.”
Anderson stops short of saying that top Iowa Workforce Development administrators — who’ve been fired — falsified records, but she says not all of the necessary records are there to “support some of the pay actions” that were made, some of which are still in effect. “We believe that we’ve identified all of the areas where we have issues where they have not followed all the appropriate paperwork or provided the right documentation,” Anderson says.
On April 5th, Governor Tom Vilsack fired the top two administrators in Workforce Development and appointed Dave Neil interim director of the agency. Neil says he’s frustrated about all the negative publicity directed at his agency because of the scandal at a central Iowa job training program the state Workforce Development agency was to oversee. “You’ve got a lot of good people in this agency doing a lot of good work,” Neil says.
Neil, who was State Labor Commissioner when the scandal broke, says he unleashed an expletive-laced tirade at now-fired Workforce Development director Richard Running for the way he was running the agency. “My outrage is gone,” Neil says. “Now, it’s the shoulder to the wheel.”
Anderson says in “some” cases, pay problems in the Workforce Development agency have been corrected but in “other” cases they’re still trying to determine whether the employee is due the pay they’re still getting. With some of the supervisors who made those pay decisions fired, it’s been difficult to track according to Anderson.
One person who was being paid to be an administrator but was been ordered to work in a state office building and Neil says they’re in the process of downgrading that person’s pay, but it’s taking time because “civil service” rules have to be followed. “We’ve just got to wait for the clock to run,” Neil says.
Anderson says this has been an unfortunate episode. “The outrage that I have is that it’s taken the light away from the many people who do their jobs really well and work hard,” Anderson says.
Pheasant harvest up, but below average
June 6, 2006 By
The numbers are in for the 2005 pheasant season — and they show a 50-thousand bird increase. But, Todd Bogenschutz of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources tracks the roadside surveys of the pheasant population statewide and was not impressed.
Bogenschutz says the numbers weren’t up quite as much as he anticipated, as he thought hunters would take 900-thousand birds and they only took about 800-thousand. He says things were fairly slow in the southern and east-central part of the state for hunters.
Bogenschutz says the survey numbers usually give a pretty good read of how many birds hunters will take. Bogenschutz says the survey is an index, not an exact science. He says the survey showed a 19-percent increase in the pheasant population — and hunters shot 17-percent more birds. While the 800-thousand birds is an increase over the hunt in the fall of 2004, Bogenschutz says it doesn’t match up to some of the best years.
He says it’s “definitely a subpar year” as he says the historical average is one-million to one-point-two million birds harvested. Bogenschutz says it’s the first time in Iowa history when a 10-year pheasant harvest estimate has fallen below one million roosters.
Bogenschutz says overall the pheasant season was average. He says while it’s nice to have things turn out better than expected, this season was just about what he thought it would be. The D-N-R estimates just over 136-thousand hunters took to the fields during the pheasant season — with 29-thousand of them from outside of Iowa.
Search on for missing Atlantic woman
June 6, 2006 By
Authorities in western Iowa are searching for a missing Atlantic woman. Atlantic police Officer Dan Collins identifies the woman as 57-year old Dawna Lynne Massie. Collins says Massie had a doctor’s appointment in Omaha at 10 A.M. on June 1st, last Thursday.
One of the doctor-students called her at 8:30 that morning, she said she’d be there in an hour and a half and never showed up. Collins says witnesses saw Massie leave her house in Atlantic. She left quickly, according to a neighbor. She had been on pain medication for a day or so as prescribed by a dentist but it wasn’t working, so they told her to come back in right away — and that’s the last she’s been seen.
Collins says the medication could have left the woman disoriented or confused. Foul play is not suspected in connection with her disappearance.
Massie left her home in a 1994 dark purple or black Chevrolet Beretta with Iowa license plate 6-7-1 C-L-Z. Collins says the woman is five-feet one-inches tall, 180-pounds, with medium shoulder-length straight hair. She also has a six-inch scar on her left elbow.
The woman normally travels Highway Six from Atlantic to Omaha, but authorities say she could also have taken Highway 92 or even Interstate 80.
An Iowa State Patrol aircraft conducted a fly-over of the area Monday, but failed to locate the vehicle. A methodical search is being conducted Tuesday by authorities. Anyone with information on Massie’ whereabouts is asked to call the Atlantic Police Department at 712-243-3512.
Spencer woman in more trouble with the law
June 6, 2006 By
A Spencer woman in trouble with the law, now finds herself in more trouble. Thirty-eight-year-old Elaine Baker was in jail charged with possession of methamphetamine and of paraphernalia as well as child endangerment. Now she also faces a charge of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, after jailers say she called her son at home and told him to take the marijuana out of the refrigerator, sell it, and post her bond.
Apparently she didn’t realize phone calls from the jail are monitored. Authorities got a search warrant and found a small amount of marijuana at her home on Monday afternoon. Her 18-year-old son, arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance, made a court appearance this (Tuesday) morning and was released. Baker remains in the Clay County jail.
Election officials say turn-out light to low
June 6, 2006 By
Election officials say turnout is extremely low in many Iowa precincts on this primary day. Scott County Auditor Karen Fitzsimmons expects turnout to be in the 10 percent range in the Davenport area. “It appears to be a typical primary, kind of slow, but kind of steady,” Fitzsimmons says. “Not a whole lot of people.”
Black Hawk County Auditor Grant Veeder predicts Waterloo-area turnout will be in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 percent of eligible voters. By 10 o’clock, 2127 people had voted in all of Black Hawk County.
Dubuque County Auditor Denise Dolan has also been predicting turnout of 15 to 20 percent in her area. “So far it seems to be fairly light,” Dolan says of turnout today. Early voting requests were higher than Dubuque County’s Auditor had expected. Over 1300 Dubuque County voters asked for absentee ballots and all but 200 of those have been returned.
Turnout in Iowa’s largest county is light as well according to Polk County Auditor Michael Mauro. About 62-hundred Democrats and Republicans had voted at Polk County polling places by mid-morning. Mauro estimates 23,000 Democrats will vote today. There are 99,000 Democrats registered in Polk County. That would mean turnout of about 22 percent. “That isn’t very much,” Mauro says.
Mauro is the Democrat running for Secretary of State. Two Republicans — Bob Dopf and Chuck Allison — are on the G-O-P ballot today seeking the chance to run against Mauro in the general election.
The statewide race drawing the most attention is among the Democrats seeking their party’s nomination for governor, however. There are about 587,000 registered Democrats in Iowa today, and the voting experts predict about 100,000 will cast votes in today’s Democratic primary.
