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Flood clean up continues in northern Iowa

June 24, 2010 By

Across much of northern Iowa, residents continue to clean out flooded basements from heavy rains that hit Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Vicki Boyington, the city administrator in the Wright County town of Clarion, says this week’s storm is the worst she’s seen.

“I’ve worked at city hall for 35 years and I have never seen one of this magnitude,” Boyington said. Clarion received 4.2 inches of rain during the overnight hours. Governor Culver, in response to recent storms, issued emergency disaster proclamations for Ringgold, Union, Taylor, Hancock, Wright and Franklin Counties.

Boyington says that will help with the clean up effort in Clarion. “A lot of people have been carrying items out of their basement to the curb. Then, we’ll coordinate with the state for clean up and debris removal,” Boyington said. A power outage in Clarion lasted five hours, shutting down many residents’ sump pumps. Highway 3 west of Clarion remains closed because of flooding.

Significant flooding is also reported in Dumont in Butler County, Hampton in Franklin County and Algona in Kossuth County.

By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Weather

Microsoft to “immediately” begin construction of data center in Iowa

June 24, 2010 By

State officials say Microsoft plans to “immediately” begin construction of a new data center in West Des Moines, although the project has been scaled down from initial plans. Governor Culver says the company promises to employ 25 people at the facility when it’s up and running next spring and those workers will be be paid more than $30 an hour on average.

“That’s the most important thing here:  economic development and job opportunities for people in this exciting information technology field,” Culver says. 

The so-called “server farm” will be located to the west of Interstate-35 and south of the Jordan Creek shopping mall that’s in West Des Moines. ”You’re talking about really good-paying construction jobs to build this $100 million facility and then 25 permanent jobs,” Culver says. “…We are very, very excited about this good news. We’ve been competing very aggressively for this project for about three years.” 

When the recession hit, Microsoft shelved previous plans to build a $600 million data center at the site in West Des Moines. Google is currently operating a “server farm” in Council Bluffs. The Google and Microsoft projects received special tax incentives from the state; over $3 million worth of road improvements were made around the Microsoft site in West Des Moines. Microsoft was considering sites in San Antonio and Chicago for its newest data center.   

“We’ve now scored the big trifecta,” Culver says. “We have IBM, Google and Microsoft all doing business and creating hundreds and hundreds of good-paying jobs in Council Bluffs, Dubuque and now West Des Moines so it’s a good day for our economy.” 

IBM has hired about 870 workers for its service center in Dubuque, with plans to expand the Dubuque workforce to 1300 by year’s end.  Google officially opened its data center in Council Bluffs two years ago, with plans to employ about 200 people.

Filed Under: Business, Politics & Government, Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Wandering bear spotted again in Buchanan County

June 24, 2010 By

A black bear that’s been lumbering through northeast Iowa for nearly a month has been spotted again — this time in Buchanan County, just east of Waterloo. Megan McConnell snapped a picture of the animal this morning as the bear wandered through the family’s backyard in Jesup.

Conservation officials believe the bear — estimated to be about 2-years-old — is the same one that was first spotted by residents in Worth and Mitchell counties Memorial Day weekend. After the initial sightings were reported, the animal was spotted about a week later in Floyd County, near Charles City.

Other sightings were reported again on June 14th in Bremer County, near Nashua. Bremer County Sheriff Dewey Hildebrandt confirms the bear was seen along U.S. Highway 63 on Wednesday, just south of the Chickasaw County line. Now, comes the latest sighting — this morning in Jesup. Conservation officials believe the bear is following the Wapsipinicon River.

The Iowa Department of National Resources is advising residents to leave the bear alone and avoid any contact, if they spot it. D.N.R. officials say the bear will leave humans alone, unless it’s provoked into being aggressive.

By Elwin Huffman, KOEL, Oelwein

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation

Harkin says Fremont, Nebraska immigration ordinance will face legal test

June 24, 2010 By

Voters just across the Missouri River in the eastern Nebraska town of Fremont approved an ordinance this week that bans the renting of apartments or houses to illegal immigrants, as well as hiring them for any job. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin says he hopes no Iowa towns attempt to follow suit.

“Any ordinance like that has to meet constitutional tests and, as I understand it, there’s going to be a court case filed immediately,” Harkin says. “City councils can’t just do whatever they want. They couldn’t, for example, pass an ordinance saying we’re going to have segregated schools. They can pass the ordinance, but the courts would never uphold it.”

The Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is vowing to file an injunction to block the ordinance from taking effect, in addition to another suit challenging its constitutionality. Harkin says city leaders elsewhere need to take note.

Harkin says, “Before towns and communities go rushing off to emulate what Fremont’s done, they’d better hold their fire and see what happens to the court cases on this.” The law will subject all renters to checks by the city, located just northwest of Omaha, and will impose fines on employers who don’t verify the immigration status of their workers.

The lawyer who wrote Fremont’s anti-illegal immigrant ordinance has written similar measures for other cities, in addition to the Arizona state law. He says the laws are on solid legal footing and will withstand any court challenge.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,

Texting ban is one week away

June 24, 2010 By

One week from today, a new state law takes effect that will ban texting while driving. Gail Weinholzer, spokeswoman for Triple-A-Iowa, says that form of thumb-typed communication via mobile device is extremely dangerous and the new statewide ban will apply to every motorist.

“The text ban is effective for all drivers in Iowa, driving through Iowa, effective July 1st, and that involves the act of composing, reading or sending text messages,” Weinholzer says. “That’s in effect for all drivers, regardless of age. The only folks that are exempt are certain types of emergency and professional drivers.” She says violators will face a $30 fine, but if there’s an accident with a serious injury or death, the texter can face a fine up to one-thousand dollars and a license suspension up to 180 days.

“We’re in full support of a text ban across the nation, in fact, 27 states have passed it, along with the District of Columbia and we’re hoping the other 23 states get on board,” Weinholzer says. “Texting while driving is a particularly dangerous distraction.” A federal study finds texting while driving was responsible for nearly 6,000 deaths and a half-million injuries nationwide last year. Weinholzer says studies have also found that people who text while driving are more than 20 times more likely to be involved in crashes than non-distracted drivers.

“When you’re driving down the road at 50, 60 miles an hour, if you’re on the interstate, you’re making decisions the entire time as it applies to other cars and speeds and exits and merging vehicles,” Weinholzer says. “You really need to be focused on the act of driving and not being distracted by texting.”

Under the Iowa law, texting while driving will be classified as a secondary offense, which means you can only be stopped and ticketed when committing another traffic offense. For novice drivers, texting while driving will be classified as a primary offense, which means you can be pulled over and ticketed based on texting alone.

While the texting ban applies to virtually all drivers, those drivers under 18 on “provisional” licenses will also be banned from talking on cell phones while behind the wheel, as of July 1st.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts Tagged With:

State to hire 1,100 to fill positions left vacant by retiring workers

June 24, 2010 By

By the close of business today, 2,100 state workers will have opted to leave government employment and retire early. The governor says he’ll authorizing hiring over a thousand people to fill vacant positions that provide “essential services.”

Those 2,100 retiring workers account for about 10% of the workforce in the executive branch of state government.  Governor Culver says the state will save about $88.6 million that would otherwise have been paid in salaries and benefits to those workers. 

“We are going to exceed our goal in terms of cost savings related to the early retirement package and that’s because hundreds of additional people signed up,” Culver says.

[Read more...]

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

Drake set to host U.S.A. Track and Field Championships

June 24, 2010 By

As Drake University hosts the USA Track and Field Championships this week officials have their eyes on the ultimate prize, the chance to host the U.S. Olympic Trials. Doug Logan is C.E.O. of USA Track and Field and says while Drake Stadium will be considered in the future he does not view this week’s championship as a “trial run”.

Logan says the more good things they see, the better they impression they get, but he says it is now way an evaluation. He says they just want a good event, and says it looks like the weather may not pose many problems. Logan has no doubts the Drake can handle a championship meet.

He says they’ve hosted a great event for 101 years with the Drake Relays, so it’s not that big a step to host this event. Former Oregon standout Galen Rupp will bid for a second straight 10 thousand meter title on Thursday night and the hot weather will affect race strategy.

Rupp says it will likely be a slower, kicker’s race, as he says with the heat there’s less chance that people will go out ahead because they are afraid of dyeing at the end.

Rupp says in a championship meet it does not matter what your time is. He says it’s all about competing and winning, and says a fast time is great, but overall you just want to beat everyone else.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: ,
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