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Des Moines City Councilman new Iowa Democratic Party chair

January 31, 2009 By

A 33-year-old who’s a member of the Des Moines City Council is the new chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. Michael Kiernan describes himself as part of a “new generation” of Democrats. ”I don’t think we’re at the top of our game,” Kiernan said Saturday. “I think we’re still climbing.”

Kiernan was the choice of Governor Chet Culver, a Democrat who’s running for re-election in 2010, and earlier today the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee elected Kiernan party chair. ”I think there’s a tremendous opportunity for the Iowa Democratic Party coming off of the last election cycle,” Kiernan told reporters at a Saturday news conference. “We have over 100,000 new registered voters in this state that are Democrats, hundreds of new activists and I think our key is to keep these folks in the party, to bring them home permanently.”

Democrats had a bad year at the polls in 1994, the election after Bill Clinton won the presidency, and Republicans had a bad year in 2006, the year after George Bush won his second term. Kiernan dismisses the idea 2010 may be a down year for Democrats, partly because of the new voters Barack Obama signed up in Iowa for the 2008 Caucuses. “I’m not going to give you the whole playbook today, but I’ll tell you this: we’re going to use new technology, social platforms and grassroots engagement to really bring these people home to roost. I mean, we’re there. We’re up by over 110,000 registrants and now it’s about telling these folks that they’re welcome in our party and making sure they know they have a seat at our table permanently,” Kiernan says. “And that’s what we’re going to set out to do.”

Kiernan ran Governor Culver’s campaign for secretary of state in 1998 and Kiernan considers Culver’s re-election in 2010 his top priority as party chairman. Kiernan would not say whether he’ll run for re-election to the Des Moines City Council in November.  ”I plan on making a formal announcement about that at the next council meeting,” Kiernan said. “I’d like time to talk with fellow council members.”

Republican Charles Grassley will be up for re-election in 2010, too, and Kiernan was asked if Democrats would have a candidate to challenge Grassley. “You know what, (I) just got on the job five minutes ago,” Kiernan said. “Give me a day or two.”

Hear more of what Kiernan had to say today by clicking on the audio link below.

AUDIO: Kiernan news conference 6:00 MP3

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Davenport robbery turns into fatal car crash

January 31, 2009 By

Police in Davenport say a home invasion investigation Friday turned into a car chase and ended with a fatal traffic accident. Officers were called to the home invasion at 4:30 a.m. and learned the two male suspects fled the scene in a Jeep Cherokee driven by a female.

One of the suspects was identified as Travis Rush, a man wanted for a recent stabbing and other arrest warrants. Just after 7 a.m., police were checking an address that Rush was known to visit when the suspect Jeep was spotted. A squad car started to follow the Jeep, when the driver of the vehicle accelerated and attempted to allude the officers.

The Jeep crashed into a tree, killing the female passenger, identified as 21-year-old Sharnice Johnson of Davenport. The back seat passenger, Rush, was injured along with the driver, Pachino Hill. Hill is facing a number of charges including Homicide by Vehicle and Felony Eluding. Police say more charges will likely be filed against both Hill and Rush. 

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Food pantries get busier with drop in economy

January 31, 2009 By

Food pantries in the state are feeling the pinch of the economic crisis. The food pantry at the Iowa City Crisis Center says demand has jumped 30-percent since 2007. Officials say this is busiest they’ve been in their 34-year history. Demand is so high right now, Crisis Center food bank volunteers can give away an entire shelf full of food in just one day — and this month alone, 100 new families signed up for help.

Food bank director Sarah Benson-Witry says, "We’re seeing a lot of people who have never been in this situation." Client Jacinta Peters says the food bank has always been crowded, but now people are fighting over the food." "That’s what I hear…nobody can find a job," Peters says. While layoffs have driven some people to the pantry, Benson Witry says others are coming because employers cut their hours.

"They had a job where they were just making it. Now, they’re not making it because they don’t have enough hours," Benson-Witry says. The food pantry relies on donations to feed hungry people. Benson-Witry says right now, there’s a real need for more cans of soup. "We saw a slight decrease in gas prices for awhile, but the food prices didn’t change. So, people are still having to pay a lot more for the food they used to get," Benson Witry said.

The food bank now serves clients ranging from homeless people to laid off businessmen. If the economy continues to decline, volunteers expect food will disappear from the shelves and tables even faster than it does right now…which is hard for any of them to imagine.

Filed Under: Human Interest Tagged With:

Anamosa building new hospital

January 31, 2009 By

A new $13-million  hospital is under construction in the eastern Iowa town of Anamosa that’ll be known as the Jones Regional Medical Center. The hospital is being built just east of the intersection of Highways 151 and 64 in Jones County. C-E-O Sean Williams says construction crews have been working on the massive structure through the harsh cold.

Williams says it’s now enclosed and heated as workers can continue working right on through winter and into spring. To keep tabs on progress in the construction, there’s a webcam on the front page of the website "www.jonesregional.org". He says the new facility will be able to accomodate more outpatients in all areas, and it will have all state-of-the-art facilities.

He says everything from the lighting to the beds to the instrumentation and the exam tables will be new, while the operating room is 600-square feet — a tremendous amount of space. The building will also feature a wireless communications network.

Williams says the hospital is not a tax-supported entity. He says many hospitals in Iowa that are the size of Jones Regional are taxpayer-funded, but he says they’ve had a lot of moral and financial support from the community. The new hospital is expected to open early this fall.

 

Filed Under: Health & Medicine

Law firm’s new office will focus on intellectual property

January 31, 2009 By

Iowa’s largest law firm is opening its third office in the state, in Cedar Rapids, which will focus primarily on protecting creations of the mind. Wendy Marsh is an attorney with Nyemaster Goode who works in the type of law known as intellectual property, which includes films, music, books, artwork and inventions.

"In order to protect an invention with a patent, you must demonstrate that the invention is new, useful and non-obvious," Marsh says. "Those sound like factors set in stone but it’s actually a very complicated analysis." Most companies in Iowa have some sort of intellectual property that needs protection, she says, from trademarks to trade secrets, or things like customer lists or employment manuals.

Marsh says people who are just starting up a business, or have an idea for a product, also need to be concerned about intellectual property rights. Marsh says, "There are a lot of inventors in Iowa and my job is to translate their ideas and their inventions into a patent application or a copyright application. Our job is, as an interpreter, to put their ideas in a protectable format." She says there should be no difference from a legal standpoint between trespassing on someone’s land versus trespassing on their intellectual property.

Marsh says intellectual property can be every bit as valuable as real property. "You wouldn’t expect someone to invest their life savings building a luxury hotel and then dedicating it to the public," Marsh says. "In the same way, inventors invest substantial time and money in their own inventions and then their inventions help the general public in many ways."

The firm’s Cedar Rapids office opened this month. Nyemaster Goode also has offices in Des Moines and Ames. The company has about 90 lawyers on staff and was founded in 1918.

Filed Under: Business

"Environment" fund idea advances in ’09

January 31, 2009 By

Iowa voters may be asked in 2011 to approve a hike in the state sales tax to finance state conservation and recreation programs. State gas taxes are funneled into a special account which may only be used for road construction and maintenance, and the idea is to pass an amendment to Iowa’s constitution and funnel the new sales tax money into another account — exclusively for environmental programs.

Al Farris of the Iowa Conservation Alliance is a retired Department of Natural Resources employee who served as administrator of the agency’s fish and wildlife division. "My perception is that a lot of individuals — voters, taxpayers, whatever you want to call them, citizens of the state — are extremely concerned about water quality," Farris says. "They’re extremely concerned about parks, and fish and wildlife habitat, and conservation of agricultural soils, but that doesn’t seem to get translated into to long term money for those activities."

The proposal Farris supports would take three-eights of a cent of any future sales tax increase and place the estimated $150 million that would raise in a special fund for parks, trails, wildlife habitat and soil conservation. Farris says amending the state constitution is a lengthy process, though. "You have to get something passed through two different sessions of the legislature to even get it to a vote a people," Farris says. "Then you have to have the people vote on it and hopefully approve it. Then that sets up the mechanism that if there is ever another sales tax increase, it happens."

The proposal was approved by the 2008 legislature and appears to be on the fast track at the statehouse this year as a bill has already cleared committees in both the House and Senate. But the proposal has critics. Representative Mary Mascher, a Democrat from Iowa City, voted against the idea last year because she opposes "messing" with Iowa’s constitution. "It’s one of the least amended documents of all state constitutions in the country. I think there’s a reason for that," Mascher says. "I think Iowans believe in their heart of hearts that that isn’t a document you tinker with every session, every time you turn around, that our fore fathers and fore mothers made it difficult for a reason."

Mascher warns that if the proposal is successful, other groups will step forward to try to convince voters to set aside other tax revenue for their own pet projects.

 

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , ,

Livestock producers will get overdue Agriprocessors payments

January 30, 2009 By

Two dozen livestock producers who sold animals to the troubled Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville will soon receive more than two-million dollars in overdue payments. The payouts were announced today by the new Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack.

Jay Johnson, regional director of the U.S.D.A.’s Packers and Stockyards program, says federal law is designed to safeguard those livestock transactions. He says everybody that filed a claim in the case will receive the full payment they were due. The money has been tied up in bankruptcy proceedings.

Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy last fall after the plant was the site of a massive immigration raid in May. The farmers that were waiting for payments sold livestock to the company before it filed for bankruptcy.

"We had 24 individual sellers that (are) livestock producers, livestock dealers and several auction markets," Johnson said. "Their payments range from $1,000 to over $500,000." The producers are located in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. 

Filed Under: Agriculture, Politics & Government Tagged With:
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