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Branstad confident he’ll beat lawsuit over his item vetoes

August 29, 2011 By

Governor Branstad says he’s confident he’ll prevail over a lawsuit that challenges his decision to close 37 Workforce Development offices, despite a legislative compromise that would have kept those offices for unemployed Iowans open.

Branstad used his item veto authority on a budget bill to remove language that dealt with the issue and to remove more than three-million dollars set aside for the operations of those offices. Last week a handful of Democratic legislators and a union leader in state government sued the governor, hoping to overturn that decision in court.
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Filed Under: Business, Crime & Courts, Military, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , ,

Branstad says east coast media hypes hurricane, overlooks Missouri River flooding

August 29, 2011 By

Governor Terry Branstad says severe flooding is still happening along the Missouri River, but it hasn’t drawn the same kind of national attention as Hurricane Irene and the flooding it has caused.

“We’ve got a flood that’s been going on a long time here in the Missouri River and it’s gotten very little coverage compared to this one,” Branstad says. During his weekly news conference, Branstad was asked by a reporter for his reaction to how the national media had gone “bonkers” over the weekend.

“It’s the East Coast. That’s where the national media is headquartered. We think if it happens in the Midwest, we’re fly-over country, you know. I don’t think we get the same treatment they get on the east coast and I guess you can expect that,” Branstad told reporters. “…The East Coast media sometimes doesn’t understand it or get it, what’s going on out here in the heartland, but that’s their problem.”

Branstad did praise public officials on the east coast for the way they’ve handled the hurricane, however. “I watched the coverage and I would say the governors and mayors and the FEMA people, I think, all worked together in dealing with that so, you know, I don’t begrudge them what they did,” Branstad said.

“And I think they did a lot to save lives by encouraging people to evacuate from low-lying areas and places of danger.”

Branstad says Missouri River flooding has been a “very critical situation” since June, and the water is just now beginning to recede. Damage along the river corridor is “substantial and on-going” according to Branstad.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters Tagged With: ,

Accidents claim five lives this weekend

August 29, 2011 By

Traffic crashes over the weekend in Iowa claimed at least five lives, including three people on motorcycles. An Allen, Nebraska man was killed late Sunday afternoon when he lost control of his motorcycle in northwest Iowa’s Plymouth County.

Authorities say 52-year-old Patrick Hirschman died when the motorcycle struck a guardrail along Highway 12. A Williamsburg man was killed when his motorcycle was struck by an SUV that crossed the center line on Highway 92 in Mahaska County. The victim is identified as 32-year-old Ben Coffman.

A motorcyclist was killed early Saturday morning after speeding by a police officer in Des Moines. The officer pursued, but then lost sight of the motorcycle. A short time later, the officer found the cyclist crashed. The driver, 24-year-old Adam Jarnagin of Waukee, died at the scene.

A teenage girl was killed and five other people were injured in another weekend crash in Des Moines. Police say 17-year-old Jennifer Garcia was killed when the vehicle she was driving was hit by another vehicle that ran a red light at 3 a.m. Sunday. And a Marshalltown man was killed in an Iowa County traffic accident Sunday afternoon.

The State Patrol reports 42-year-old David Walker was driving a car on Interstate 80 that crossed the median and struck an oncoming SUV. Two people in the SUV, both from Woodstock, Illinois, were injured and taken to University of Iowa Hospitals.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Grassley says Katrina lessons helped preparations for Irene

August 29, 2011 By

NASA photo of Hurricane Irene.

Utility workers and Red Cross volunteers from Iowa are fanned out across the East Coast helping communities and individuals recover from the weekend strike by Hurricane Irene.

The monster storm came ashore in North Carolina early Saturday and churned northward, nearly six years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says Katrina and Irene were treated much differently.

“A lot has been learned from Katrina and a lot has probably been learned from the private sector, the Red Cross, Walmart, etcetera,” Grassley says.

 ”They did such a better job than the federal government did in Katrina. This does show there’s been some learning.” Hurricane Irene left left four-million homes without power and killed at least 21 people in eight states.

Damage may top seven-billion dollars. Grassley says he was pleased to see how many things went right in this storm. “We found a great deal of cooperation between the federal government and the various state governments and cooperation among the state governments,” Grassley says.

“You also found the local utilities and other service companies making decisions earlier and anticipating what could happen.” Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy dispatched 140 electrical workers and tree and line contractors to the East Coast while Red Cross workers and volunteers from several Iowa chapters are also on duty there. Many of the Iowans left the state late last week, preparing for the worst.

“You found a great deal of overprecaution,” Grassley says. “I don’t use the word ‘overprecaution’ to be controversial. I say it’s a lesson learned from Katrina when nobody listened to the dangers that were being forecast for Katrina.” By contrast to Irene, Hurricane Katrina claimed more than 1,800 lives and caused $81-billion damage.

Katrina made landfall on August 29th, 2005, six years ago today.

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

Auditor gives governor, legislators overall good marks on budget

August 29, 2011 By

The Republican state auditor is giving Iowa’s Republican governor and legislators from both parties “high marks” for the state budget plan enacted this summer. But while Republicans claimed the state now is spending less than it collects in taxes, State Auditor Dave Vaudt says his review shows otherwise and the entire budget plan is larger than last year’s.

“It’s taken us several years to get into the financial condition that we’re in today,” Vaudt says. “We’ve dug a deep hole and it’s going to take several years for us to actually climb back out.” According to Vaudt, the state is spending $1.04 for every dollar the state collects in taxes and lawmakers used $53- million  in one-time money to pay for on-going expenses, a practice Vaudt has railed against for years.

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

Egg farm manager says they’ve adjusted salomonella plan

August 29, 2011 By

The general manager of one of the Iowa egg farms that was recently noted for violations by the F.D.A. for not following its protocol for preventing salmonella, says they quickly made adjustments to the plan to comply. Southwest Iowa Egg’s Rich Hall says it was the first look by inspectors since they created their new plan.

He says they hired a veterinary consultant to help develop the plan, and implemented that plan according to the vet’s best interpretation of F.D.A. requirements. “You know, you think you’re doing everything right until you actually have your first audit, and then you get feedback back on where you can improve on your documentation, and that’s what happened when we had the inspection in April,” Hall says.

The new plan was created after eggs from other Iowa plants were linked to the nationwide salmonella outbreak one year ago. The F.D.A. gave company officials Southwest Iowa Egg a poster detailing some of the regulations pertaining to egg production, but imposed no penalties. Hall says they made changes at the Massena plant when the implemented the new salmonella prevention plan.

He says when facility first opened, they allowed tours, but that practice was stopped not long thereafter, to prevent contamination, and provide for a safe product that’s shipped to the consumer. Hall says they have even gone beyond federal requirements to ensure the eggs are safe.

He says the birds have been vaccinated for salmonella for three years, which is not required. In addition, their facilities have been tested twice, once by the F.D.A., and a second time by an independent lab. No evidence of salmonella was ever found. Hall says an audit in July of the cooperative’s north facility, did not reveal any problems with documentation.

Southwest Iowa Egg was one of the facilities included in a report in the Des Moines Register Sunday on how the facilities are handling salmonella regulations one year after the nationwide outbreak. Iowa is the nation’s leading egg producer, with 57-million hens laying 14 billion eggs per year.

By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic

Filed Under: Agriculture, Health & Medicine

University of Dubuque looks to be a contender

August 29, 2011 By

University of Dubuque football coach Stan Zweifel feels the pieces are in place for the Spartans to move into contention in the Iowa Conference race. Dubuque has ten starters back on offense from a team that posted a 4-6 record during an injury-plagued 2010 season.

Zweiful says the most important things is to stay healthy as their top 22 to 28 players are probably as good as anybody in the league, but the caliber drops off after that. Zweifel says the Spartans are a more experienced team even though they only have seven seniors.

He says one of the most rewarding thing is that they made a commitment to recruit area kids and 103 of the 128 teammembers are from a 150 mile radius of Dubuque.

Zweifel says the next step for the program is to beat one of the conference heayweights. He says Central, Wartburg and Coe are teams that have done very well over the years and to make their mark they need to beat one or all of those teams.

Dubuque will open on Thursday night with a visit to Augustana of Illinois.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:
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