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Deadline extended for some 2008 disaster assistance programs

July 8, 2010 By

The state has extended the deadline to apply for several 2008 disaster recovery programs for business owners and landlords. Tina Potthoff of the Rebuild Iowa Office says the deadlines have been moved to December 31st of this year. She says the programs extended include the “Commercial Rental Revenue Gap Assistance Program,” which helps commercial building owners compensate for lost revenue due to the disaster, another is the “Residential Landlord Business Support Program,” which helps landlords who lost rental income, and there’s the “Loan Interest Supplement Program,” which helps pay the interest on an S-B-A or private loan for disaster recovery.

While it has been two years since the flooding hit, Potthoff says they felt it was important to extend the deadline for the programs.

Potthoff says they’ve heard from Iowans who’re still recovering from this disaster and she says some of the programs take some time to get the paperwork done, and some people are just getting around to doing the paperwork. Potthoff says some people may wonder if they qualify for the programs and a simple phone call can help them out.

Potthoff says individuals, landlords, or business owners can call the Rebuild Iowa Office at 515-242-5004, or log onto the website at: www.RIO.Iowa.gov.

You can also find a summary of the programs on the Iowa Department of Economic Development website at:www.iowalifechanging.com. Click on “Disaster Recovery Assistance” at the bottom right-hand corner, then “Disaster Recovery Business Assistance Programs.”

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Politics & Government

Alexander seed company worker dies after falling off ladder

July 8, 2010 By

A worker has died after an accident at a north-central Iowa seed production company. A worker at Latham Hi-Tech Seeds in Alexander is dead after falling off a ladder on Wednesday morning.

Company officials say they still aren’t sure about what caused the man to fall off the ladder, but say the long-time employee was taken to the Belmond Medical Center after the accident and then airlifted to Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa in Mason City, where he later died.

The company is not identifying the man until his relatives are notified. Employees of the company were allowed to go home after the incident.

By Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City

Filed Under: Agriculture, Business, Fires/Accidents/Disasters

More than $8,000 missing in Muscatine, but no charges to be filed

July 8, 2010 By

A review by state auditors has found at least $8,000 seized as evidence in eastern Iowa drug investigations cannot be found, but no criminal charges will be filed.  

The first clue came last fall when the Muscatine County Attorney asked the Muscatine County Drug Task Force for the $5,000 in cash that had been seized in a case, but the money wasn’t in the safe or evidence room. Another $850 in cash from two other cases couldn’t be found.

The state auditor’s office review found more problems. A total of $8,110 worth of cash or money orders couldn’t be found, plus a C.D. player and two speakers which had been seized in another case couldn’t be located. State auditors say they were unable to determine whether more cash and property may be gone, too, and the Muscatine County Drug Task Force paperwork “was not adequate.” 

A spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Public Safety says the state Division of Criminal Investigation conducted an investigation and the findings were turned over to the attorney general’s office, but the attorney general’s office “decided there is insufficient evidence to prosecute at this time.” 

Officers from the Muscatine County Sheriff’s Office, the Muscatine Police Department and the Division of Narcotics Enforcement are part of the Muscatine County Drug Task Force.

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

Northeast Iowa communities clean up after flash flooding

July 8, 2010 By

Clean up is underway in Waterloo and other nearby communities after Wednesday’s thunderstorms deluged the Cedar Valley with heavy rain that flooded basements and city streets, stranding several residents. Rainfall totals in Waterloo alone ranged from about an inch at the airport to nearly six inches on the southeast side of the city.

Residents in the Cedar Terrace neighborhood of Waterloo, near the casino, spent the night sandbagging their homes and pumping water from their basements. Sump pumps were also left running overnight in other parts of Waterloo, and some nearby neighborhoods in Evansdale, Elk Run Heights, Raymond, Dewer and Washburn.

Black Hawk County supervisors are considering a disaster declaration due to Wednesday’s flooding — a move they’ll discuss at a meeting this afternoon. In Dewar, an unincorporated town northeast of Waterloo, a foot of water overran the banks of a nearby creek and gushed into the town’s post office.

Postal officials say no mail was destroyed, but the building remains closed today for clean-up and a damage assessment. Dewar’s 75 post office box holders are being told to pick up their mail in Gilbertville, which is eight miles away. In Oelwein, fast-moving water rushed through Bill Shaner’s northeast side neighborhood, leaving his home unlivable.

The water washed away most of the home’s foundation. The Red Cross provided lodging for Shaner and another family overnight.

By Elwin Huffman, KOEL, Oelwein

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Weather

Opponent questions Attorney General’s handling of Alcoholic Beverages Division case

July 8, 2010 By

The Republican challenging Democrat Attorney General Tom Miller this fall says Miller needs to offer a broader explanation of why he told the governor a state administrator who spent thousands of dollars on things like artwork and an expensive dishwasher couldn’t be fired. An audit released last week revealed former Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division administrator Lynn Walding also authorized a one-million dollar payment to a contractor remodeling the agency’s warehouse, long before the work was done.

Brenna Findley, the Republican nominee for attorney general, suggests the state’s current attorney general, Tom Miller, may have been looking out for Walding, who used to work in Miller’s office. “I’m calling on him to release his memo so that we can see what sort of legal reasoning he used to tell the governor that he couldn’t fire Walding for mismanagement,” Findley says.

Miller’s office issued a statement last week, saying it did not appear the information about Walding that the governor presented his office in late 2008 supported Walding’s firing. Findley is accusing Miller of “sitting” on a legal memo to protect Governor Culver, a fellow Democrat.

“I certainly think that the attorney general and Governor Culver could release the memo,” Findley says. “And I think they need to given the situation at hand and the mismanagement and the problems with taxpayer dollars that have come into play in this situation.” Miller says Findley is “misinformed on the facts and the law.”

Miller says there was “no legal memo” and he gave Culver “oral advice.” In addition, Miller says the information he was presented in late 2008 was “mainly about a personnel matter” and Miller says the “evidence wasn’t there” to support Walding’s firing. Miller says if he had been presented with the “information from the audit, then it would have been a different story.” According to Miller, there were “some surprises” in the audit about Walding’s spending decisions.

According to Findley, it’s hard to imagine the abuses outlined in the state audit that was released last week wouldn’t have been grounds for firing. “There was a long list of problems at that agency from procurement problems, spending problems, items bought from parties that had relationships with Walding,” Findley says. “And also problems with pay raises.”

The audit questioned the rapid rise of a woman who was first hired as an intern in 2000 and whose salary between 2004 and 2006 was raised more than 80%.

Miller says that is not the personnel issue presented to him when his legal advice was sought two years ago.

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

Simon Estes to sing at World Cup soccer final

July 8, 2010 By

World-renown opera star and Iowa native Simon Estes will sing to a global audience Friday as part of the World Cup finals in South Africa. The music that will accompany Estes was all recorded at Iowa State University. Professor Mike Golemo, chair of the I.S.U. music department, arranged the orchestral accompaniment for the world premiere of the song, “Save the Children, Save Their Lives.”

The music and lyrics were written by Denise Rich specifically for Estes several years ago, Golemo says. “He’s had this on the back burner, I don’t think he’s ever used it, ever performed it, and when this opportunity arose, a light bulb went off and he said ‘I’ve got the perfect selection for this.’” Golemo, I.S.U.’s director of bands, says he routinely arranges music for university marching bands that perform before perhaps 70,000 people, but the World Cup from Johannesburg has an audience exponentially larger.

“If you took everybody who watches the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Stanley Cups, all those types of playoffs and put them together, it doesn’t even come close to how many people watch the World Cup,” Golemo says. “It’s such a global audience, it’s just mind boggling.”

The last World Cup finals, held in Germany in 2006, had a worldwide TV audience of 715-million. Estes’ song was recorded on the Ames campus for the concert by a small orchestra comprised of three I.S.U. faculty members and four student music majors. Several of them played multiple instruments, including saxophone and piano, while a violinist recorded one part 20 times to make it sound like a full string section by layering tracks.

“We actually made two versions, one with his voice on it, too, in case his voice went out or something like that, then he could lip-synch it as well, but he’s planning on singing it live,” Golemo says. “The children’s voices that are on the recording, we had our recording engineer travel to Cape Town, South Africa, to record the children’s choir from his school.”

Estes, a native of Centerville, established the Simon Estes Music School in 1997 for impoverished students in Cape Town. It has grown from 60 students to an institution now serving some 300 learners in grades 8 through 12. The World Cup’s Grand Finale Concert will support the international campaign “United Against Malaria,” an effort to fight the disease. The song, “Save the Children, Save Their Lives,” will be included on a new CD that will go on sale when Estes returns to Iowa on July 17.

Filed Under: Recreation & Entertainment Tagged With: ,

State Consumer Advocate asks for IPL electric rates to be cut

July 8, 2010 By

Iowa’s Consumer Advocate has responded to a request by Alliant Energy’s Interstate Power and Light subsidiary to raise electric rates by $162-million  by asking the Iowa Utilities Board to instead lower I-P-L’s rates by $1.8 million. Acting consumer advocate, Jennifer Easler, says her office doesn’t believe the rate increase is justified.

Easler says there are many issues in the case, with a couple of the big issues being transmission costs and “weather normalization.” Easler says the information her office has gathered doesn’t show the need for what would be a 13.8%electric rate increase.

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Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With:
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