February 9, 2012

You are here: Home / 2006 / June / Archives for 29th

"It shouldn’t take long" — Key Democrat predicts governor loses in veto override

June 29, 2006 By

A key Democratic leader at the statehouse suggests a number of Democrats will rebuff their governor and vote to override Governor Tom Vilsack’s veto of a property rights bill.

Senate Co-President Jack Kibbie, a Democrat from Emmetsburg, predicts Vilsack’s veto of the bill that would have limited local governments’ ability to seize private property and turn the ground over to private developers will be overturned in a special session. “I personally think there’s enough votes to override it,” Kibbie says. “And it shouldn’t take long…(The action) is going to start in the House and if the Democrats follow the Republicans on an override, I don’t see the Senate standing in the way.”

House Democratic Leader Pat Murphy of Dubuque is a bit more diplomatic, but Murphy’s no longer saying on the record that Democrats will stand with their governor and insist that the bill be rewritten. “The legislature will be coming back…and House Democrats will be deliberative and look at the issue and they’ll make their decisions based on what they think should be done,” Murphy says. “We’ll go from there.”

Three top leaders in the legislature today (Thursday) told Governor Vilsack they intend to call the Iowa Legislature back into special session on Friday, July 14th. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs is still seeking a compromise rather than a rebuff of the Democrat governor. Gronstal suggests that lawmakers agree to a nine-month moratorium on any property seizures by Iowa governments. “What would be accomplished is we would get the protection for private property rights,” Gronstal says. “If there isn’t a consensus to rewrite legislation now and there isn’t a consensus to override the veto, what about looking at a moratorium where there would be no condemnations for nine months until we had a change to have the next General Assembly try and pass some legislation on this subject?”

But Representative Ed Fallon, a Democrat from Des Moines who finished third in the party’s gubernatorial primary earlier this month, says he’s “pretty confident” enough Democrats will join with Republicans to overturn Democrat Tom Vilsack’s veto. Fallon cites a plank approved in the Iowa Democratic Party’s platform which called for tougher restrictions on local government authority to seize private property. “There’s clearly an abuse of eminent domain in Iowa, particularly in rural circumstances that I’m familiar with,” Fallon says. “I think people are aware that there are additional protections that are needed if people are to feel that they have equal footing in discussions about development in their communities.”

Fallon says he can offer no explanation as to why Vilsack misjudged the sentiments of Democrats on this issue. “I don’t know why (Vilsack) made the decision he did. We’ve talked a little bit about it. I know he feels very strongly that it might impede economic development, but I simply don’t see that,” Fallon says. “Maybe the governor and I just have a difference of opinion on this, but again I’m a little baffled that the veto ever occured.”

At least 16 Democrats must join the 51 Republicans in the House in order for the veto override vote to pass. In the Senate, nine Democrats must join the 25 Republicans for Vilsack’s veto to be overridden.

Filed Under: Politics & Government

Few take advantage of S-B-A help in Iowa City

June 29, 2006 By

Hundreds of homes and businesses saw millions of dollars damage in the Iowa City-area tornadoes in April, but few owners are taking advantage of the Disaster Assistance Outreach Center that opened this week in Iowa City. Mark Randle, spokesman for the U.S. Small Business Administration-backed center, says they’ve only had a trickle of the expected traffic.

Randle says it’s a one-stop facility that can speed the recovery process. Randle says people can sit down with loan officers one-on-one, they can get help filling out the application and then get it processed out of the same office. While FEMA denied Governor Vilsack’s request for a disaster declaration, the S-B-A named eight eastern Iowa counties under its declaration: Benton, Cedar, Iowa, Johnson, Linn, Louisa, Muscatine and Washington.

Randle says the low-interest S-B-A loans are -not- just for businesses. Randle says the S-B-A disaster assistance is for homeowners, renters, businesses of all sizes, and private, non-profit groups. He says about 80-percent of the loans made by S-B-A following disasters are to homeowners because there are usually many more homeowners effected than businesses.

Nearly 500 properties had damage in the April 13th storms, with some damage estimates reaching between nine-and-11-million dollars. He says “We don’t want people to wait if they still have something pending but to come in and apply and find out what they’re eligible for. We can cover the deductibles or the gaps that insurance doesn’t cover. If there are code-required upgrades to the properties, we can include that in the S-B-A loan.”

The outreach center is 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”.

Related web sites:
S-B-A info

Filed Under: Business

Thirty-six to lose jobs in Keokuk plant closing

June 29, 2006 By

Thirty-six people will lose their jobs when the Elkem plant closes in Keokuk. Plant Manager Mark Nilsen says the Norwegian corporation that owns it will move production to factories in China and Norway. The plant’s output is used by the metal forging industry, which has been moving overseas for several years.

They used to run a furnace shut down in the 1980s due to lack of demand in the U.S. The volume of demand has slowly declined for years and this year the main customer shut down, inflicting a major hit to sales. He says while some factories are sold to new owners who can use their furnishings in some other industry, it’s not likely with the Keokuk plant, which was built in the 1930s.

The equipment’s pretty specific to what they made there — they “really only do one thing,” Nilsen says, would be pretty hard to retro-fit to some other manufacturing use, and so they’ll mothball the plant and winterize it so everything could be restarted someday. He says there isn’t much possibility of that, though.

Nilsen says they hope all the workers can “turn around and get reemployed” before long. Elkem has a severance package for salaried workers, and next week they’ll start negotiating the effects of the shutdown with the union. The company says a few workers will remain for a while to finish shipping out the remaining finished products and leftover raw materials.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With:

Man charged with giving false info in Evelyn Miller murder case

June 29, 2006 By

A Charles City man police say is one of the last people to see Evelyn Miller alive has been arrested on charges that he lied to federal officials investigating her murder. Twenty-seven-year-old Dan Slick, of Charles City, was arrested this morning and charged with knowingly giving a false statement to federal agents. He was taken into custody and was expected to be in court later today.

Police believe Slick, along with Randy Patrie, are the last two people to see five-year old Evelyn alive. Patrie has said previously that they arrived at about 2 A.M. the night Miller disappeared, but denied that he was involved in her disappearance, saying that the pair just stopped by “to catch a buzz” with Casey Frederiksen, the former fiancee of Evelyn’s mother Noel Miller.

Floyd County Attorney Marilyn Dettmer says she feels the investigation has turned an important corner with the arrest today of Slick, but adds that while Slick’s federal indictment is directly related to the Miller case, it is a distinctly different case.

Miller disappeared from her home in rural Floyd on July 1st, 2005. A manhunt ensued, culminating on the July 6th with the discovery of her body on the banks of the Cedar River.

Officials ruled Evelyn’s death a homicide and launched an investigation. No suspects have been named in Miller’s death.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Iowa commander in Iraq says soldiers are "doing very well"

June 29, 2006 By

The commander who’s leading six-hundred-40 Iowa National Guard soldiers on a mission in Iraq says they’re a “solid team” and the soldiers are “doing very well.” Lieutenant Colonel Ben Corell of Strawberry Point is commander of the First Battalion, one-33rd Infantry which includes soldiers from Guard units in Waterloo, Dubuque, Oelwein, Iowa Falls and Charles City.

“We’ve been focused on improving the living conditions, improving the ability of our soldiers to have access to communications devices to make contact back home,” Corell says. “In the information age that a lot of these young soldiers have grown up in the use of snail mail really is a lost art for these young soldiers and the ability to pick up the phone or get on a computer to send e-mail is pretty important to them and we’ve made some good progress along those lines.”

The base of operations for the First Battalion, one-33rd Infantry is at an air base in western Iraq, about 150 miles from Baghdad. Corell’s soldiers, who’s been in Iraq since April, provide security and escorts to convoys shipping supplies like food, fuel and water throughout the western part of Iraq. “We are very busy, I’ll put it that way,” the commander says. Corell says he and his soldiers “know the enemy’s out there and see his work on a daily basis.”

The vehicles the soldiers use in their missions have top-of-the-line “level one” armor which Corell says means is armor that was installed when the vehicle was manufactured. “The challenge for us is that on occasion we have to get outside the vehicles. Once we get outside the vehicles, then we increase our risk. The off-set to that is we don’t get out of the vehicles unless we absolutely need to and when we do get out of the vehicles we check the conditions prior to getting out of the vehicle,” Corell says.

“I-E-D’s (Improvised Explosive Devices) are the biggest threat that we face out here. We were trained on IED recognition and I’ll tell you that we find many more than actually detonate on us.”

Corell describes the armor that individual soldiers wear whenever they leave the base.) “Several years ago…when the Secretary of Defense was over here (in Iraq) a soldier stood up and there were some complaints about what we had done to protect our soldiers,” Corell says. “We have the latest and greatest body armor.”

It includes kevlar helmets, eye protection, hearing protection as well as fire-retardant gloves. “The enemy does have a say in the activity that goes on. It is a dangerous place,” Corell says. “But I’m confident that soldiers are trained, soldiers are well-equipment, the soldiers are motivated to go out and do the job that we ask them to do every day.”

Corell, who’s been the battalion’s commander since February of 2003, says he’s proud of the attitude of his soldiers. “What I preached to these soldiers from day one was we needed to have an infantry organization that is very lethal when it has to be but can show compassion when it has the opportunity to and the soldiers know the difference between the two,” Corell says. “This is a tough environment. This is a very tough task that we’re being asked to do and that is to fight a counter-insurgency with an enemy that is difficult to see, who blends into the local population. You’ve got to be very disciplined to be successful in this and from what I can see within my foxhole, we are being successful.”

One soldier in the unit from Iowa Falls who was injured by an “improvised explosive device” is back in the states right now undergoing physical therapy. Corell spoke with Iowa reporters this (Thursday) morning by telephone from Iraq.

Filed Under: Military Tagged With:

Eldora man dies after arrest

June 29, 2006 By

An Eldora man died last night (Wednesday) shortly after being taken into police custody. Twenty-three-year-old Brian Gregory Junior was chased by officers through an Eldora trailer park about 5:30 P.M. and minutes after he was arrested on a probation violation, he became unresponsive.

Witnesses claim Gregory’s head hit a car when police apprehended him. He was taken to an Iowa Falls hospital where he was pronounced dead. The D-C-I is investigating.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Southwest Iowa couple accused of harboring illegal immigrants

June 29, 2006 By

A southwestern Iowa couple is charged with harboring illegal immigrants who worked at two restaurants they own. Shui Ming Lin and Xiu Wen “Wendy” Zhang are charged with employing three Chinese and one Mexican illegal immigrant at the China Garden Restaurant in Atlantic and two Chinese illegal immigrants at the Panda Garden Restaurant in Harlan.

On June 21, Immigration officials searched both restaurants, as well as the couple’s home in Atlantic and two apartments in Harlan and arrested five people on charges they were in the country illegally. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were unable to find any employment-related documentation for any of the workers, all but one of whom officials say are paying off smugglers who helped them get into the country illegally.

Immigration officials began their investigation in March, when they received word that some China Garden employees were making suspicious Western Union Wire transfers to China. If convicted, Lin and Zhang face a maximum of ten years in prison, and could lose their legal immigrant status.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts
« Older Posts