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Property rights talk continues among legislators

June 23, 2006 By

There were developments on three fronts today in the debate over property rights legislation that Governor Tom Vilsack vetoed, including a discussion of possible dates for a special legislative session to override the governor’s action.

The attorney for the Connecticut woman who lost her property rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court and spurred state legislatures like Iowa’s to rewrite state laws is in Iowa today to speak to the Iowa Bar Association.

Scott Sawyer says Governor Vilsack’s veto of the bill that limited local governments’ authority to seize private property for economic development programs is outrageous.

“Your governor basically wants total and ultimate power over your homes and businesses,” Sawyer says. “He wants to be able to take your home or business and put it to some better use. He wants to be able to take your farm and replace it with a factory. He wants this incredible and vicious power to take all your hard work and pay you pennies for it.”

Sawyer urged Iowans to write or call Vilsack and legislators to tell them the veto was wrong. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State today (Friday) “temporarily” turned over the official copy of the bill Vilsack vetoed, sending it to leaders in the Iowa House.

Deputy Secretary of State Charlie Krogmeier says the action in no way takes sides in the debate over whether the legislature has the authority to veto the bill, or must draft and pass a new bill as the attorney general has suggested.

“We spent the last day or so visiting with the attorney general’s office as well as reading the opinions, the constitution and other things and came to the conclusion that we could release (the official copy of the bill)…as long as there were enough restrictions on it that we knew the bill would come back to us eventually,” Krogmier says.

The Secretary of State’s office is to be the “repository” for official copies of bills passed by the legislature. Soon after the Secretary of State released the bill, House Speaker Christopher Rants communicated with the 80 House members who’ve signed letters indicating they’re interested in a special session to tackle the property rights topic. Rants suggested that the House should try a veto over-ride sometime in mid-July or the first of August.

Rants currently does not have enough Democrats, however, who will agree to override Vilsack’s veto. Sawyer, the lawyer who lost the Connecticut property rights case that has spawned this nationwide controversy, warns of danger if Vilsack’s veto stands. “Iowa does not want the disaster that has happened in New London, Connecticut to happen in New London, Iowa,” Sawyer says.

Governor Vilsack vetoed the property rights bill and said he would sit down with legislators to craft a different bill that would ensure job creation efforts aren’t stymied by new restrictions on local governments. State Senator Bob Brunkhorst, a Republican from Waverly, Iowa, says Republicans aren’t inclined to trust Vilsack’s word because he went back on a deal and used his item veto authority to remove part of the teacher pay package that called for linking pay to classroom performance.

“We believed we had a handshake…on that. My members are telling me ‘Bob, why negotiate with a governor on eminent domain when, dang it, he vetoed our stuff that we’d agreed to,” Brunkhorst said as he slammed his hand on the lectern during a statehouse news conference earlier this afternoon. “So (Vilsack) needs to make some wrongs right and I believe through executive order that needs to be corrected ASAP before we would even think about coming to the table.”

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With:

Summer football league getting ready to kick off

June 23, 2006 By

Summer may have just started but Iowans will have several chances to watch a football game over the next couple of months. There are three teams in the state that are part of the North American Football League which has more than 100 teams in divisions across the country.

The Iowa Bruisers will play their home games at Manson-Northwest Webster High School, the Cedar Valley Vikings play in Cedar Falls and the Des Moines Threshers are a first year team that will play at Valley Stadium in West Des Moines.

Trevor Coxworth is the owner and quarterback for the Bruisers and says the NAFL is an amateur league, and he says they play for the love of the game. But Coxworth says this is not a bunch of middle aged men trying to relive their glory days. He says this is not a softball league, and he says Tanner Varner from U-N-I is the starting safety for the team. Coxworth says they also have kids right out of high school too.

The Bruisers will host Cedar Valley on Saturday afternoon and Coxworth says the games will provide quality entertainment for low cost. He says people 15 years and younger get in free and tickets for 16 years and up are only six dollars.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:

Kids triathalon to run in Quad Cities Saturday

June 23, 2006 By

A triathalon in the Quad Cities on Saturday will be targeted to youngsters. The first Steventon’s Kid’s Triathalon will be held in Bettendorf and organizer Tim McKinnon says it is designed to promoter the sport and fitness in general.

The event includes swimming, biking and running and with kids involved McKinnon says added precautions will be taken to make sure everyone is safe. He says he’ll have 75 adult volunteers for the 150 participants so there will be plenty of adults to make it safe.

McKinnon says as opposed to adult triathalons this one will have much shorter distances. There’s a race for seven to 10 year olds and race for 11 to 14 year olds.
McKinnon says they want to promote the sport and not offer a supreme challenge that adult triathalons do.

He says they decided to make the lengths accommodating to kids so that they don’t collapse at the finish of the race. McKinnon says it’s and introduction to the sport, not a supreme test of endurance.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:

Judge approves payment in Davenport sexual harassment case

June 23, 2006 By

A federal district court judge has approved the payment of 327-thousand dollars in compensation and fines in a case in which 10 Davenport women claimed sexual harassment and discrimination against their landlords.

Landlords John and Maura Burche had filed for bankruptcy after their 2004 trial in the case ended with a judgment against them — but the federal judge said they had to sell 10 of their properties to pay the judgment. Ralph Rosenberg is the executive director of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

Rosenberg says he’s pleased for the tenants and for the operation of the Civil Rights law that got a strong ruling from the courts. The 10 women said John Burche coerced sexual favors from them in exchange for reduced rent or gifts. The women say there are low-income and had few other housing options.

Rosenberg says this case is unusual. He says the case was fairly involved, and says “it was very unusual for a bankruptcy judge to force the sale of properties in order to pay for this.” Four of the women will receive 35-thousand dollars and six will receive 25-thousand dollars. Rosenberg says that’s a large judgment for this type of case.

Rosenberg says, “Many cases are resolved confidentially, so most of our cases you never read about.” Rosenberg says the cases are often settled, mediated or withdrawn, and he says this case reminds people of the statutes. Rosenberg says this case should show people that you can get justice if you feel you’ve been discriminated against.

Rosenberg says you should call his office at 1-800-457-4416 if you think you might have a case. Rosenberg says a call doesn’t guarantee that they’ll advise you to file a claim, but he says they will review your case carefully. The State of Iowa and the Davenport Civil Rights Commission were each awarded 10-thousand dollars as part of the case.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

S-B-A declares eight counties disaster areas

June 23, 2006 By

The U.S. Small Business Administration has declared eight eastern Iowa counties a disaster area following the April tornadoes and severe storms that claimed one life and caused millions of dollars damage.

While FEMA denied Governor Vilsack’s request for disaster assistance last week, S-B-A spokesman Phil Duncan says his agency is stepping in to offer low-interest loans to businesses, non-profits, homeowners and renters. Duncan says the S-B-A is opening a Disaster Outreach Center in Iowa City on Tuesday, with the hours of Tuesdays through Fridays from 8:30 A.M. to 6 P.M. and Saturdays from 10 A.M. through 2 P.M. It will be closed on July 4th.

The disaster declaration covers eight counties: Johnson, Benton, Cedar, Iowa, Linn, Louisa, Muscatine and Washington. Duncan says the outreach center is being opened in Iowa City since that area took the bulk of the damage. He says people can come in and they’ll find S-B-A personnel who will sit down with them and help them fill out the loan applications for businesses of any size, homeowners, renters and non-profit organizations.

While the S-B-A typically focuses its attention on just small businesses, Duncan emphasizes these loans are being offered by the federal government to everyone who had damage in the April 13 and 14 twisters and storms. The loans for home damage can go up to 200-thousand dollars with another 40-thousand for personal contents, while business loans can go up to one-point-five million dollars.

It’s estimated nearly 500 properties had damage in the storms, with some damage totals reaching between nine-and-11-million dollars. Duncan says the interest rates for the S-B-A loans are very low, given the circumstances. The home loans will be offered at an interest rate as low as two-point-875 percent while the business loans will carry an interest rate of four-percent.

The S-B-A Disaster Outreach Center will be opening Tuesday at the Johnson County Administration Building at 917 South Dubuque Street in Iowa City. It’s expected to be open through mid-July. For more information, call (800) 659-2955 or surf to “www.sba.gov”.

Filed Under: Business, Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Simultaneous dance planned for Mississippi

June 23, 2006 By

Dancers will perform along the Mississippi River on Saturday, simultaneously putting on a show at points hundreds of miles apart. Marylee Hardenbergh is founder of “One River Mississippi.” She’s a choreographer who’s been creating site-specific dance performances on the Mississippi since 1985. Her art form is creating dances specifically for one space.

“They can be indoor or outdoor, but all of mine are outdoor,” Hardenbergh says. The music, the costumes and the movements of each dance are all created for that one particular site. From the headwaters of the Mississippi to its mouth at New Orleans, seven metro areas including the Quad Cities are highlighted for this event.

Hardenbergh says the planning extends to even the spectators. They can’t stand with the sun in their eyes, and they must be comfortable and able to see. When planning a performance, she says, “I find a site, I find a place for the audience to be, and then I ‘drink in’ the site and find ways to make that site come alive.” She says the performance in Iowa tomorrow combines art, community and ecology.

Thanks to cooperation from the Army Corps of Engineers, there will be dancers on Lock & Dam 15 at Rock Island. It’s near an eagle-viewing area, and the dancers will wear costumes suggestive of eagles, while other performers will appear on water skis and canoes, and dancing on pleasure craft on the river. “The whole site is going to come alive!” Hardenbergh declares.

Organizers have letters of support from mayors of rivertowns along the Mississippi, and proclamations from the governors of all the ten states along the river’s mainstem, proclaiming this Saturday “One River Mississippi Day.” “My dream is that the governors eventually all get together and sign a ten-state charter wanting to take care of our river.”

Even fifteen years after one of her performances, people have told her about passing a riverside performance site and still thinking of how beautiful a landscape was with all the color and music of a performance. “There’s some thing that happens with these site-specific performances so that the audience feel connected to that site in their hearts.” The program also features seven environmental issues and seven featured “Heroes of the Mississippi,” from historical figures to Iowa cleanup activist Chad Pregracke.

Related web sites:
One River Mississippi

Filed Under: Recreation & Entertainment

Two injured in flash fire in Council Bluffs

June 23, 2006 By

Two men are hospitalized in critical condition after a flash fire at a house where they were working in Council Bluffs. Fire Department spokesman Rick Benson says the two were refurbishing a wooden floor in an old home.

Two workers for an Omaha floor-refinishing company were using some flammable chemicals to resurface a floor in a vacant house. Somehow the flammable fumes built up in the house from the chemicals they were using were ignited by a spark, an in the flash fire that resulted, the two were badly burned.

The building itself didn’t suffer serious damage from the flash fire, which may have been caused by an electric floor buffing machine according to some reports. Benson says the fire in the house sounds like a typical flash fire — once the chemical vapors ignited, they quickly burned out, though they injured the workers and ignited their clothes. The two men were taken to Creighton Hospital in Omaha.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters
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