Iowa's Radio News Network
Fires have claimed fewer lives in Iowa this year. Iowa Department of Public Safety spokesperson Jessica Lown says 33 people have died in structure fires in Iowa in 2010.
“One death is one too many as far as we’re concerned and 33 is a lot,” Lown said. “But, when you compare it to previous years, last year we had 46 and we’ve had many years when we’ve had as many as 60 fire fatalities. So, we have to be thankful for what we can be thankful for.”
A break in a sewer line on the north side of Coralville has caused an ongoing discharge of untreated wastewater.
The water has been going into a storm water basin, then Muddy Creek, then into the Iowa River according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
The break was reported to the city about 3:30 Wednesday afternoon after someone saw sewage coming out of a manhole. The city was assessing damage to a lift station “to determine the extent and timing of repairs.”
Officials don’t know when the discharge began. Normally about 321,000 gallons of untreated wastewater go through the pump station each day.
(Reporting by Phil Roberts)
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A Forest City-based motor home manufacturer has announced a deal to purchase an Indiana rival.
Winnebago Industries executives have announced Winnebago will be purchasing the assets of Middlebury, Indiana-based SunnyBrook RV Incorporated in a $5.7 million deal. The newly-formed Winnebago of Indiana will continue to use the SunnyBrook brand on towable products. But Winnebago will expand the product line made in Indiana, building Winnebago trailers and fifth-wheel products there.
Winnebago began making only motorized RVs more than 40 years ago and the purchase of SunnyBrook marks Winnebago’s re-entry into making RVs which can be towed.
SunnyBrook was founded in 1992 and has a more than 250 employees working in its 200,000 square feet manufacturing facility in Indiana. SunnyBrook is considered the country’s 13th largest travel trailer manufacturer. Winnebago Industries is the market leader.
SunnyBrook’s founder and C.E.O. will stay on as manager, according to Winnebago.
(Reporting by Bob Fisher, KGLO-KRIB, Mason City)
The Iowa Attorney General’s office says a marketing company has been playing on parent pride and using the governor’s office to push people to spend money on trips for their kids. A-G spokesman, Geoff Greenwood, says the marketing company for “People to People International” would send letters to people saying their child had been specially chosen to take a trip with the group.
Greenwood says they were concerned that the letters led recipients to believe that People to People, and perhaps the governor — had chosen their kid to go on the trip based on some kind of achievement.
Over the past 12 months, 44.66 inches of precipitation fell in Iowa, on average.”Puts us second, behind just 1993, which was quite a bit yet wetter yet than this year,” says State Climatologist Harry Hillaker. “But, still, second’s pretty wet when you have 138 years of weather records.”
It was the fifth-wettest July on record and June, 2010, ranks as Iowa’s wettest June ever.
“Many people are surprised, especially by that month of June — I say, it’s the wettest June ever, the second-wettest (month) of any calendar year on record — yet not really a tremendous amount of flooding going on in that particular month,” Hillaker says. “The bigger flooding came a bit later, late July in northeastern Iowa, the Maquoketa River especially, and then during the second week of August with flooding mainly in central Iowa, but overall flooding not as severe as you’d anticipate with so much rainfall.”
The Lake Delhi Dam collapsed in flooding in July and the lake drained away. In August, a deluge sent floodwaters cascading through Ames and the small town of Colfax was swamped, as well as some low-lying areas on the east side of Des Moines. [Read more...]
Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro says his office has reached an agreement to close the books on federal money that was misspent by his predecessor. Federal officials said Governor Chet Culver misspent over two-million dollars in funds from the 2002 Help America Vote Act when Culver was Secretary of State.
Mauro says they were able to work through a process to cut that amount of money down to several hundred thousand dollars. Mauro says they ended up with a “disallowable amount” of approximately $221,000 and they were able to offset that amount with salaries they could have appropriated and were able to bring the total down to zero.
Federal officials say Culver broke several rules in spending the money things such as a program called “Celebrate Voting” that included money for speakers, entertainment, supplies, medallions for honorees, children’s activities and a traveling exhibit that told the story of the struggle for voting rights.
There were also questions about the process which did not use bids for the consulting firm known as the State Public Policy Group, and money spent on radio ads. Mauro says it has taken three years to sort things out so the state would not have to pay money back.
“So the taxpayers are the winners, and I’m glad it is over with,” Mauro says. Mauro did not win a second term, but says polices have been put in place to try and prevent future problems.
Mauro says they put some guidelines in effect to have some type of procurement policy, especially when outsourcing projects.
The Help America Vote Act was passed in 2002 in response to problems with the 2000 election. Iowa received some 30 million dollars from the program.
You can see the entire report on the misspent funds here: HAVA audit 2010 PDF
Governor Culver’s chief of staff, James Larew, issued this response to the report:
No federal rules were broken. Competitive bidding was not required for the contracts with SPPG and others. The Attorney General’s office advised that competitive bidding was not required and that advice was conveyed to the Election Assistance Commission.
2) There is no finding that $2.5 million in voting funds were misspent. When documentation was provided to the EAC, most of the initial challenges were withdrawn-leaving only $220,995 (about 7/10th of 1 percent of the program budget) in dispute.
3) There were a number of disagreements in good faith between the Secretary of State’s office and the auditors regarding how funds were spent to implement the HAVA program.
4) Most of the federal rules that were interpreted to evaluate the Iowa HAVA program were not even published by the time that the Iowa HAVA program had been completed-the Secretary of State’s office did much of its work using its best judgment.
5) The remaining disputed amounts were made subject to a resolution under which terms:
a. No admission of wrongdoing or illegality or failure to follow rules was required nor offered.
b. No expenditure of state or federal taxpayer funds will be required;
c. There will be no loss or diminishment of HAVA funds at the Secretary of State’s office, by even one cent; and
d. The Election Assistance Commission has acknowledged the fact that SPPG provided “extensive effort and support” in implementing HAVA in Iowa and that quality work was produced in the course of implementing the HAVA program. We appreciate their role in implementing HAVA in Iowa.
The Iowa HAVA program has been acknowledged as one of the nation’s best programs. As a result of the program, Iowa’s voters are assured of voting on machines that function properly and in accordance with best practices. Iowa’s voting places are accessible to all citizens, even those with disabilities. Iowans have confidence in their voting system and vote in record numbers.
Temperatures have climbed above freezing today across much of Iowa. The brief warm-up is helping street crews clear frozen snow and homeowners clean up their driveways and sidewalks. But, the melting snow can be a hazard if it’s on the roof and is prevented from draining by what’s known as an ice dam.
Fort Dodge home improvement specialist Bill McAnnally says removing the snow with the right implement is the key. He suggests buying a roof rake. “I have one of those that extends out about 20 feet and I can be on the ground and pull snow off places that might have an ice dam,” McAnnally said. “Sometimes you see people taking hatchets and shovels and all kinds of basically destructive materials towards their roof and that’s not good because the surface is cold and susceptible to damage.”
McAnnally says a ridge of ice can form at the edge of the roof and prevent melting snow from draining. He says the water can back up behind the ice dam and leak into the home. “In one particular case I saw it activated the home’s smoke alarm. It got in and short circuited the alarm,” McAnnally said. “It can build up so much, cause a lot of structural damage and in some instances collapse part of a house.”
He recommends taking a close look after each snowfall to make sure no ice dams have formed. McAnnally is a regular contributor to Iowa Public Radio’s Talk of Iowa program.
O.KayHenderson.com