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President of Iowa/Nebraska NAACP endorses Vander Plaats

October 12, 2009 By
Keith Ratliff (file photo)

Keith Ratliff (file photo)

A lifelong Democrat who is the president of the Iowa-Nebraska chapter of the NAACP has endorsed Republican Bob Vander Plaats for governor.  Reverend Keith Ratliff of Des Moines says the stand Vander Plaats has taken in favor of traditional marriage was a factor.

“Family is very important to me,” Ratliff says.  “Family is not the only issue and so they’re all, certainly, weighted together.” Ratliff voted for Chet Culver, a Democrat, in 2006.  But Ratliff says as governor, Culver hasn’t moved more quickly to address complaints that state hiring processes are skewed against minorities.

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Filed Under: Business, Education, Politics & Government, Religion Tagged With: , , , ,

11 counties under Winter Weather Advisory

October 12, 2009 By

Winter doesn’t officially arrive until late December but much of Iowa got an early taste of it over the weekend, and there’s more winter-like weather on the way this week. National Weather Service meteorologist, Brad Small, says 11 counties in northern Iowa are under a Winter Weather Advisory today.

The advisories call for one-to-two more inches of snow in areas of northwest and north-central Iowa, including cities like: Estherville, Sioux Center, Algona, Spencer and Forest City. Over the weekend, Small says there were a couple of new records set in Iowa for cold temperatures.

He says there were also records set for the earliest snowfall. Many Iowa communities are seeing forecasts for high temperatures this week that are 20-degrees colder than normal. Early today, Ottumwa tied a record of 25-degrees set on October 12, 1987. Small says this week’s weather will be more of the same.

“Cold, damp and dreary” is how he sums it up, with lows in the 30s, highs in the 40s, plenty of clouds and continued off-and-on rain. See the forecast at “weather.gov”.

Contributed Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City

Filed Under: Weather

Waterloo man faces charges in deadly accident

October 12, 2009 By

A Waterloo man is facing charges following a weekend traffic crash that killed a teenager. The crash happened at 1:20 Sunday morning at the intersection of Sergeant Road and University Avenue in Waterloo. Police say a van, driven by 37-year-old Jeffery Heidemann, collided with an SUV driven by 18-year-old Karlee Nagel.

Negel was pronounced dead at a hospital. Heidemann allegedly fled the scene on foot before he was found at a nearby residence. He’s currently charged with drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident. Friends of Nagel, who was a student at Waterloo West High School, gathered for a vigil at the crash site Sunday night.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Omaha woman dies after accident

October 12, 2009 By

An Omaha woman is dead after a weekend car accident in southwest Iowa. The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Department says 36-year-old Tamara Curtis died Sunday after being flown to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Curtis’ car had been hit broadside by a pickup at around 12:15 PM, near Treynor.

The driver of the pickup, 32-year-old Corey Hackett, of Oakland, was treated for his injuries at scene of the crash, which took place at the Y-shaped intersection of U.S. Highway 6 and 300th Street. Officials say Curtis’ car was traveling north on 300th Street, when it pulled out onto the highway from a stop sign at the intersection, and was struck by the pickup. The crash remains under investigation.

Contributed by Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Iowa moves up one spot after win over Michigan

October 12, 2009 By

The Iowa Hawkeyes are up a spot to 11th in the latest Associated Press top 25. The Hawks are 6-0 after a 30-28 victory over Michigan on Saturday night. Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz says Michigan came in to play and he says his team played with “great, great effort.”

Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi threw an interception that the Wolverines returned for a touchdown on the second play from scrimmage. It is the third time this season an opponent has taken an errant Stanzi pass back for a score. “It’s unfortunate, it makes the game a little bit tougher certainly,” Ferentz says. But he says he looks at the positive and Stanzi bounced back and leads the team very well.

Tight end Tony Moeaki returned from injury and gave the Iowa offense a big boost. Moeaki caught six passes for 105 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Moeaki says it was a great team win in a great atmosphere.

It was another, close, hard fought victory for the Hawks and Moeaki expects more of the same. Moeaki says every game in the Big Ten is going to be a battle and they have to come out every week.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: ,

Former budget director says cuts sometimes yield unitended consequences

October 12, 2009 By

A man who served as former Governor Tom Vilsack’s budget director has some experience with across-the-board cuts in state spending. Randy Bauer led the Department of Management in 2001 when Governor Vilsack ordered a 4.3 percent cut in the state budget.

Governor Culver ordered a 10 percent across-the-board last week.  In an interview before that announcement, Bauer said while reductions in education, public safety and human needs programs get more of the attention, layoffs in smaller agencies have a big impact. For example, when the Department of Revenue loses staff, Bauer said there are fewer people to keep an eye on businesses and retailers.

“They’ve got enormous responsibility to collect the revenue that’s owed to the state,” Bauer said, “and yet when they’re taking those kinds of budget reductions it’s difficult for them to carry on that mission and then ultimately that can hurt the state even more because you end up in a situation where, because they’re not able to do their job, we collect even less revenue.”

Bauer warns “bad actors” may try to take advantage of the situation. “There’s always a certain amount of gaming of the system that you’re just going to have to take as a fact,” Bauer said. “And you don’t have resources to do as many audits or as many field samplings of sales tax collections and that sort of thing and, as a result, you tend to see an erosion in your overall collections.”

Bauer is now a consultant, specializing in state government operations. He said Iowa isn’t the only state with budget woes. According to Bauer, the news coming from other states is uniformly bad. Bauer’s bio on the “LinkedIn” website shows he’s done consulting work for Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania as well as a handful of major U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C. and St. Louis.

(This story was posted on 10/12/09 and updated on 10/28/09 after Mr. Bauer noted the interview on which the story was based occurred before, not after, Culver’s budget-cutting announcement.)

Filed Under: Politics & Government

Program allows farmers to donate part of crop to food banks

October 12, 2009 By

A program that allows farmers to help feed the hungry that was suspended due to flooding in the state last year is being revived. Northeast Iowa Food Bank executive director, Barbara Prather , says the program allows farmers to donate some of their crop to food banks.

“They can designate how ever many bushels they sell, and the food bank will get the rewards of that,” Prather says. The elevator then writes a check and gives it directly to the food bank and the food bank can turn that into dollars to buy food for people in need. Prather says the donations will help the food banks restock their shelves at a time when there’s a big need.

She says the farmers give the elevator their tax id number, then the elevator writes out a check directly to the food bank or food pantry. A similar program coordinated through grain elevators in Forest City and Keister, Minnesota, has been successful in helping offset the large need from those laid off at Winnebago Industries. Riley Lewis farms west of Forest City, and says it’s a good program.

“It’s more than bushels and it’s more than money, it’s coming from the heart, and we want to help our neighbors and people who have met into times, it’s not their fault,” Lewis says. Farmers who wish to donate can log onto the website “Feeding-America-dot-org” and enter their zip code to find a local food bank or pantry that’s participating.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Human Interest Tagged With:
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