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Luther basketball coach moving into new position after 27 years

February 25, 2011 By

The longest tenured womens basketball coach in the Iowa conference is stepping down. After 27 years as womens basketball coach at Luther college, Jane Hildebrand is leaving the position to become the school’s assistant dean for student life.

Hildebrand, whose 438 career wins ranked 27th on the Division 3 womens all-time list, says the timing was right. Hildebrand says she just accepted the position two weeks ago and it was an opportunity that she didn’t think would come about again soon, and it was the right time to make the change.

Hildebrand says she’s happy to continue to serve the Luther college community. She says it’s a “blessing and an honor” to be a part of the school and she says the school has been important in her development as an individual and she looks to continue it.

Hildebrand won seven Iowa conference championships, made the NCAA tournament nine times finishing 3rd in 1992, and 5 times was named Iowa conference coach of the year.

By Darin Svenson KDEC Decorah

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:

Gas prices going up daily

February 25, 2011 By

Iowans have been seeing gasoline prices rise almost daily this week, including jumps of a dime-a-gallon in some cities. Triple-A-Iowa spokeswoman Marilynn Muir says most of the price hikes can be blamed on the unrest and violence in Middle Eastern countries, like Libya and Egypt.

“We have to keep in mind that only two-percent of our oil is produced overseas in those areas,” Muir says. OPEC, she notes, could easily make up the extra 2% lost in that region. The motor club says the average gas price in Iowa is now $3.29 a gallon, one cent higher than the national average.

Now that prices at the pump have exceeded the $3 mark, Muir says some speculate they’ll again reach $4 a gallon. “Some people are even saying all the way up to five dollars,” Muir says. “Triple-A is really not seeing that in their speculations but it could very easily rise to four dollars, just because as a consumer, we use more gas in the summertime because more people are traveling.”

Gas prices in Iowa have risen 19-cents a gallon in the past month, 74-cents a gallon in the past year. Iowa’s all-time record high average price for gas was $4.02 a gallon in July of 2008.

Filed Under: Business, Politics & Government

Iowa Guard postpones drills until budget is set

February 25, 2011 By

The Iowa Army National Guard has postponed some regular drills planned for next month over concerns about a possible federal government shutdown. Guard spokesman, Colonel Greg Hapgood, says units scheduled to drill the weekend of March 5th and 6th will not meet until April.

The current budget extension expires at midnight on March fourth. “What that allows us to do is push that March drill after April first so that we feel confident that after April first the budget will be in place or another continuing resolution , and we will have the funding we need to pay those soldiers to drill,” Hapgood says.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Military, Politics & Government Tagged With:

Winterset man admits to sending threatening letters

February 25, 2011 By

A Winterset man has pleaded guilty to sending threatening letters to several people. The U.S. Attorney for Iowa’s Southern District says William David Langford admitted to sending an envelope to an individual that contained a written death threat and a white powder he indicated was a harmful biological agent or toxin.

Langford also pled guilty to mailing threatening letters to nine other individuals or organizations in February of 2010. Langford will be sentenced on May 27th.

The charges carry the potential for prison time of up to five years and a quarter-million-dollar fine for each count.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Local officials oppose Branstad property tax plan

February 25, 2011 By

Local officials warn city and county services will be drastically reduced if the legislature approves the governor’s plan to reduce commercial property taxes.

Unlike residential homes or agricultural land, commercial property is currently taxed at 100 percent of its value. Governor Branstad recommends reducing commercial tax rates to 60 percent for any new construction and, over the next five years, gradually reducing that rate for existing commercial property to 60 percent.

Alan Kemp, executive dirctor of the Iowa League of Cities, says cities agree that commercial property taxes need to be reduced, but he says Branstad’s proposal is too precipitous.

“All cities are going to lose, but generally speaking larger cities are going to lose a higher proportion just simply because they’ve got, as a percentage of their property, more commercial property valuation,” he says.

The Iowa League of Cities estimates the City of Des Moines would collect $56 million less in commercial property taxes over the next five years and Cedar Rapids would collect $38 million less in commercial property taxes during that period. Scott Sanders, the finance director for the City of West Des Moines, doubts his growing suburb would grow enough to off-set the $32 million it would lose in commercial property tax payments over the next five years.

“West Des Moines, obviously, is known as a high-growth community,” he says. “If West Des Moines is going to struggle to grow out of this proposal, I can’t imagine how other cities would.”

John Gilliland of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry says his group is disappointed industrial property isn’t included in the governor’s tax-reduction plan. But Gilliland suggests Branstad’s proposal may be a worthy first step as commercial property taxes have increase by 51 percent over the past 10 years and businesses are over-burdened.

“That equates to $1.5 billion in just 10 years,” Gilliland says. “So clearly we’re in a model is just simply not sustainable.” 

House Republicans are considering other property tax reduction schemes, including one that would reduce the rates on all classes of property — residential, agricultural, commercial and industrial.  To accomplish that, the state would pick up a larger share of school district costs which are now borne by property taxpayers.

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

Democrats wage all-nighter but fail to block labor law bill

February 25, 2011 By

A bill that would limit collective bargaining rights for public workers in Iowa passed the Labor Committee of the Iowa House early this morning. Democrats on the panel tried all night to block the vote, adding 50 amendments, all of which were voted down.

Representative Kirsten Running-Marquardt, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, urged her colleagues to keep collective bargaining rights in place for Iowa’s public employees.

Running-Marquardt says, “We are willing to go all night long here, tomorrow, through the weekend, however long we need to take, so we will not take away rights from police officers, firefighters teachers, state troopers and all of our other workers.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business, Politics & Government Tagged With:

ISU students power bus with recycled veggie oil

February 25, 2011 By

A team of Iowa State University students is launching a project to recycle used vegetable oil from the campus cafeterias into biodiesel fuel to power CyRide buses. David Correll, a grad student in I.S.U.’s College of Business, is president of the effort called I.S.U. BioBus. Correll says the concept is simple.

“We’ll be donating what we produce to the university,” Correll says. “We’ll be operating completely non-profit for at least a year. We have two phases of production over that year, ramping up as we get better at what we do. Next year, we’ll start to look at how we can monetize what we do.”

To sell fuel, they’ll need to be licensed by the state, so he says that’s more of a long-term goal. The processor that will turn the grease into diesel fuel is being installed and Correll says they’ll start making their first batch in early March. “Phase One calls for five-gallon production per week, just to make sure we don’t break anything or hurt anyone,” Correll says. “Once we prove viability there, we’ll move up to hopefully the full capacity of our processing unit, which is 55 gallons per run. Each run takes six to eight hours so we’ll looking at 55 gallons per week production, if we do one weekly run.”

Eventually, the BioBus project may start collecting waste oil from area restaurants. Correll says they could also use a byproduct from the processing — glycerin — to make hand soap which could be sold to help sustain the project. While the fleet of CyRide buses cruising around Ames uses many hundreds of gallons of diesel each week, Correll says this small push toward sustainability is important.

“The contribution we’ll make to reducing diesel fuel consumption is pretty minor, at least at the beginning,” Correll says. “Right now, our goal is to just prove viability, to prove at a large institution like Iowa State with public transportation needs, we can fuel that bus, even partially, at this phase.”

Correll is a 32-year-old P.H.D. student from Cedar Falls, who earned his master’s degree from Iowa State with co-majors in sustainable agriculture and biorenewable resources and technology.

Learn more about BioBus at: “www.stuorg.iastate.edu/biobus/home.htm“

Filed Under: Education, Environment & Conservation Tagged With: ,
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