The city of Council Bluffs is sitting in a very unique position, according to Mayor Tom Hanafan. Mayor Hanafan says, “We live in the largest metropolitan area in the state of Iowa and the largest metropolitan area in the state of Nebraska.”

While Omaha continues to draw conventions, Hanafan says the same thing is happening in Council Bluffs. He says the reason some groups choose Council Bluffs instead of Omaha is because they are strictly Iowa-based, like the State Bowling Tournament.

“It’s 15 weeks,” the mayor says, “and that brings people from all over the state of Iowa that will come to our community and you wouldn’t have that in Omaha.” A long-term expansion of the Council Bluffs freeway system is in the works. Hanafan says the upgrade is needed as the current interstate system was drawn up many years ago and can’t handle the significant upturn in traffic.

“The design of our interstate system is for about 60,000 cars a day on I-80 and 29,” Hanafan says. “The new build-out is for 145,000 cars.”

 Hanafan says the roadways are now taking about 100,000 cars a day. He says they will need $175,000 per year for six years to complete the project. Hanafan is starting his second-quarter century as mayor of Council Bluffs.

By Karla James

A study finds nearly a quarter of all Iowans have no financial cushion to rely upon if there’s a serious event in their lives, like getting fired or being in a serious car accident. Jennifer Brooks, spokeswoman for the national nonprofit Corporation for Enterprise Development, says “asset poor” is the term used in the report and Iowa ranked 12th in the U.S. for asset poverty.

“So what we found in Iowa is that nearly 23% of households were asset poor, meaning, they didn’t have enough income to meet their day-to-day needs at the poverty level if their income was interrupted,” Brooks says. “So if they lost a job or they had some kind of medical emergency, 23% didn’t have enough to sort of make it.” She says the financial security of Iowans was slightly better than the nationwide picture.

“When we last did the score card in 2009, 22% of households were asset poor,” Brooks says. “That number’s increased to 27%, so Iowa’s doing a little bit better than the national average but there are still a significant proportion of folks in Iowa who really can’t make it.”

Another measure used in the study of residents’ financial instability goes one step beyond asset poverty and into a category called liquid asset poverty. “To get that measure, we basically take out some resources like a home or a car or a business that would be very difficult to turn into cash if you lost your job to figure out what resources people actually have,” Brooks says, “so it’s money in the bank, retirement savings, that type of asset that they could easily access.”

In Iowa, 29% of residents were liquid asset poor — nearly one third of the population. The survey ranks all 50 states in 52 measures of financial security. See the full report at: “scorecard.cfed.org“

The Meskwaki Tribe near Tama is hoping a new museum will help tell their story to the rest of the state and the country. Meskwaki historic preservation director, Jonathan Buffalo, says the idea for a museum had been around since the 1940′s, but it wasn’t at the top of the priority list.

“Life was hard, you know, there were other things to worry about, like decent housing, water, electricity, stuff like that,” Buffalo explains. “So a museum has always taken a back seat to whatever we had to do, even with the casino, we had to build a high school first, our health clinic, roads, housing. And now things are settling down so the idea of a museum is coming back.”

The museum has started out small and is in the tribe preservation office. Buffalo says it includes artifacts, utensils, photographs, documents, art, bead work, and other items passed down from the Tribe through the years.

“In some parts it’s a tribal thing, but then it’s open to the public because we can’t tell our history without telling state history, national history, you have to intertwine that stuff to understand us. And hopefully, when a non-Indian visitor visits, they walk away knowing a little bit about the tribe, and knowing a little bit about themselves too,” Buffalo explains.

There are approximately 1,300 members of the Meskwaki Tribe. Some probably already know about the Meskwaki settlement from its annual Pow Wows where they show off their native dress and dance. Buffalo says many others no doubt have seen or heard about the casino owned by the tribe and see it as the symbol of the group.

“And what they don’t realize is, we are a tribe with a casino, not a casino with a tribe. So hopefully our museum will explain that. That we have been here for a long time, that we are an ancient people on this continent,” Buffalo says. He hopes to expand the museum as they move forward.

The museum is now open to the public from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays. Buffalo says if the demand increases, they would look at opening on Saturdays too. For more information on the Meskwaki Nation, go to their website: www.meskwaki.org.