Iowa's Radio News Network
There’s one sure way to beat your competitors, buy them. Des Moines-based publishing giant Meredith Corporation already produces two magazines targeting moms and dads — called “Parents” and “American Baby.”
Meredith announced it’s purchasing three competing publications, “Parenting,” “Babytalk” and “Conceive.” The sale price was not released.
All three of the competing magazines will publish their last issues in September. Subscibers will be sent the Meredith titles instead.
Home sales and prices rose in Iowa last month. Don Marple is president of the Iowa Association of Realtors, which tracks the numbers.
“We’ve seen a 6.1 percent increase in sales from April of last year to this April and we’ve seen about a 3 percent increase in the pricing of homes,” Marple says.
A total of 2,851 homes were sold in Iowa last month. That’s up from 2,688 home sales in April 2012. The median sale price across Iowa rose from $124,000 to $128,000. Marple says home prices in Iowa have been steadily rising, but it’s still a good time for first-time home buyers to enter the market.
“We’re always concerned, but the value and the amount of buyers out there are helping with the increase in the values of properties. But, interest rates have been a big help, staying around 3 to 4 percent,” Marple says. “It just makes it very affordable for anyone to be buying now instead of renting,” Marple says.
The number of homes on the market has been declining, which has contributed to the price increases. But, Marple expects more Iowans will be looking to sell their homes in the coming months. “Our inventory is down. Our supply of inventory is down to about 6 months, which is about a 20 percent drop from last year at this time,” Marple says.
“But, we did have about 300 more homes on the market (in April) than last year at this time. Spring is getting here, summer’s coming up, people are getting ready to out of school – so, they’ve got their homes ready to put on the market and they want to join in on the action and make a move.”
Iowa’s largest utility hopes to raise its electric rates. MidAmerican Energy is asking the state utilities board for its first base-rate increase since 1995. If approved, residential customers will pay nearly $3 more a month, on average, starting in August.
It’ll be $8 more a month by 2016, compared to the current rate. MidAmerican officials say the rate hike has nothing to do with last week’s announcement of a near-two-billion dollar investment in building hundreds more wind turbines.
The company says the new crop of turbines should reduce bills one-percent by 2017.
MidAmerican’s Bill Fehrman, middle, with Governor Branstad & Lt. Governor Reynolds.
MidAmerican Energy plans spend nearly $2 billion to install 656 new wind turbines in Iowa.
Bill Fehrman, the company’s president and CEO, said MidAmerican customers in Iowa should see a one-percent reduction in their utility bills once those turbines are up and running.
“As a result of this project, we’re actually able to reduce rates by $10 million by 2017,” Fehrman said during a news conference at the state capitol.
By starting the project later this year, MidAmerican will qualify for federal wind production tax credits that are set to expire December 31.
“Without that, the environment for doing projects of this magnitude and this size simply would not be possible,” Fehrman said.
Over the past several years MidAmerican has spent about $4 billion to install 1267 wind turbines around the state. MidAmerican plans to add the new turbines along the wind “ridges” in Iowa.
“In 2016, when the fleet is built out, you could do the calculation and about 39 percent of the energy that our customers would use could be supplied by wind,” Fehrman said.
The project should be complete by the middle of 2015.
“The actual sites are still under development, but generally if you look at a good wind map, you can probably get a good feel for where we’ll be targeting,” Fehrman said. “The ultimate decision on that will be done over the next couple of months.”
There are no state or local tax breaks being offered for this project. Fehrman said the federal wind production tax credit is “critical” to the survival of the industry.
“Now there’s a lot of efforts within the industry to continue to make themselves more competitive and we certainly support all of that as we go forward, but the work that our federal delegation did to extend it at least through this year was fundamental to our decision to bring these benefits back for our customers,” Fehrman said.
Iowa’s governor invited the MidAmerican executive to make the announcement in a news conference staged in the governor’s statehouse office late this afternoon..
”(MidAmerican) Energy has the new record: $1.9 billion investment in Iowa,” Branstad said, “the largest capital investment in our state’s history.”
The governor said farmers benefit from the long-term leases MidAmerican will pay to erect these turbines in the countryside, and counties benefit from the rising property tax base.
“The closer you live to where wind is produced, the more supportive you are of this industry,” Branstad said.
A MidAmerican news release indicated landowner payments would top $3 million a year, but MidAmerican’s president would not comment on what an individual farmer might expect to be paid for leasing his land for one of these new wind turbines.
Critics of wind energy say the industry can’t be profitable without the federal tax credits. Branstad credits MidAmerican’s expanding wind turbine portfolio with landing Facebook’s eventual billion-dollar expansion into the Des Moines suburb of Altoona.
“Many of these high-tech companies, they want to have a ‘green’ portfolio,” Branstad told reporters. “They want to say that a lot of their energy for these data centers comes from renewable sources and we can offer that right here in Iowa.”
MidAmerican executives estimate 460 construction workers will be hired to put up the new turbines. MidAmerican will put 48 workers on its full-time payroll to operate and maintain the turbines.
AUDIO of news conference, runs 19:55
Issues on the ballot in special elections in Johnson and Warren County both failed to get enough votes to pass Tuesday. Warren County voters overwhelming turned down a measure that would have allowed gambling in the county — with 60-percent voting “No”.
Warren County Economic Development Director, Jason White, says he’s disappointed in losing the chance for a new casino that would bring 600 new jobs and millions in investment to the county. “Now that it has not succeeded, I guess just reflecting on this, we are very proud of the hopeful optimistic campaign that was waged by the Warren County Citizens for good jobs. And really are positive about the many things that we have going on in the future too,” White says.
“I think from that standpoint we still have a large portfolio of companies that want to invest in Warren County.” White is used to going up against other counties and cities in trying to lure businesses to the county, but in this case they were going up against established casinos, including Prairie Meadows in nearby Polk County.
“Certainly Prairie Meadows is very strong in central Iowa. I think people have the perception that there are too many casinos — certainly that was an argument that some people made. I guess we still go back to the fact that one third of the state’s entire population is here (in central Iowa) versus other counties that are much smaller and have multiple casinos. So I think there is still a market for it, but obviously it won’t be here,” White says.
White hopes the casino campaign has highlighted the need to bring more business to the county. “We don’t have a lot of time to really wallow in our sorrows on this. The one thing I will say is that we would like to invite those who opposed this project to certainly put forward alternative ideas for economic development projects for Warren County try to help harness those same energies to contribute to our county’s growth,” White says.
“Because we are going to need all hands on deck as we continue to address the challenges that we have to grow our county.” The failed vote means the county can’t vote on allowing gambling again until 2021.
In Tuesday’s other vote, Johnson County residents rejected a 34-point-five-million-dollar bond proposal for a new jail and expanded courthouse. The bond needed 60-percent of the vote to pass, but received only 54-percent. Jeff Cox, a volunteer for the “Say No Campaign,” says he doesn’t think the county has exhausted every alternative before turning to the bond issue.
“They simply haven’t been able to compromise on the issue of a bigger jail. We incarcerate way too many people now and we jail too many people, and there are ways to deal with that problem that haven’t been addressed,” Cox says. Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan says it’s back to the drawing board for the county.
“I don’t know, I guess we could go a lot of different directions. The need does not go away. We still have serious and significant courthouse needs and serious and significant jail needs,” Sullivan says. “We’re going to have to continue to do the best we can.” The Board of Supervisors cannot bring up the bond issue for another vote until at least six months.
Picketers are marching around construction sites in Iowa’s second-largest city, which is still recovering from the devastating flood of 2008. On Tuesday, a carpenter’s union in Cedar Rapids voted down a wage offer from general contractors after the contract expired last week.
Michael Glavan, of Kleiman Construction, says flood projects brought in more contractors who don’t hire union labor and often pay less per hour.
“We go to bid a job and there’s ten people bidding it, there’s two union bidders,” Glavan says. “If our wages and package are above those folks, how are we going to be competitive and get future work for these people?” Local 308 representative Dave Hogan says the union voted down the contractor’s proposal by a four-to-one ratio.
“Nobody wins with a strike,” Hogan says. “Strike does nobody any good, but sometimes you just have to stand for what you believe in. In the work that’s gone on in Cedar Rapids since 2008, these very contractors have made hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, there’s going to be a slowdown for a couple months, but it’ll come back. It always does.”
Hogan says the biggest reason the proposal was rejected is that the Iowa City union negotiated higher wages last year. “Those same carpenters are getting a $1.49 raise this year,” he says. “They offered our carpenters less than a dollar and these carpenters work back and forth on Interstate 380.”
General contractors who hire union workers say offering higher wages will make it difficult to make competitive bids for projects against non-union contractors. Two carpenters’ unions in the Quad Cities are also on strike.
Legislation that would force all internet-based businesses to collect local and state sales taxes passed the U.S. Senate on Monday, a bill that could bring Iowa millions of new tax dollars a year. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, voted against the measure. Grassley counters those who say it would level the playing field so brick-and-mortar businesses could compete against online giants.
“It would, put do you want to put the small internet businesses out of business because they can’t abide by it?” Grassley asks. “It seems to me, that’s an important consideration as well.” Some business owners say it’s difficult to compete with online retailers which don’t have to collect the taxes.
A similar internet sales tax measure before Congress last year was touted as being able to generate 24-million dollars a year for Iowa, according to the Iowa Department of Revenue. Grassley says if the state wants those dollars, state legislators can act.
Grassley says, “Don’t forget, the state of Iowa has the capability of enforcing the use tax laws in collecting any of this money, if they want to.” The legislation, called the Marketplace Fairness Act, passed the Senate 69-to-27. It heads next to the House. Grassley isn’t optimistic about the bill’s chances of being enacted.
“There’s a lot of questions about how the legislation would work as a practical matter,” Grassley says, “questions about enforcement, even on foreign-based businesses and what kind of costs and administrative burdens it would put on businesses.” While Grassley opposed the measure, Iowa’s other U.S. senator voted for it.
Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat, issued a statement saying the legislation would help businesses on Main Street. Harkin said: “It also means a more level playing field for our state and local governments, which are experiencing a loss of revenue that has to be made up with fewer services or higher property or other taxes.”
Governor Terry Branstad, a Republican, says he’d support passage of the bill. Even key internet retailers are on opposite sides of the issue — eBay is against it, while Amazon backs it.
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