Two of the proposals would cut income and property taxes for some Iowans, while the other would raise the state’s gas tax. A three-member subcommittee in the Iowa Senate signed off on a 10-cent hike in the gas tax. Senator Tom Rielly, a Democrat from Oskaloosa, is the key architect of the plan.

“I think it should be pointed out that anytime we talk about any fee increase, it’s a last resort and I am convinced that we are at that last resort,” Rielly said this afternoon.

Officials estimate current state gas tax collections are falling $215 million dollars short of what’s needed to fix and build roads and bridges in the state. Senator Rielly suggested there’s nowhere left to cut in the DOT’s budget to find that kind of extra cash.

“Since 2002, we have 750 fewer employees (in the DOT). We have turned over almost 800 miles of roads to cities ad counties. We have closed 40 maintenance garages and engineering offices,” Rielly said. “That freed up about $45 million.”

Senator Tim Kapucian, a Republican from Keystone, signed-off on the proposal which would raise the gas tax five-cents on January 1st, 2013 and by another nickel on January 1st of 2014. Kapucian said many roads and bridges in rural Iowa are “dilapidated.”

“I live between a couple of small towns in eastern Iowa,” Kapucian said, “and the bridges that go in and out of that town where there are millions of grain stored, we cannot legally get those trucks back out to Highway 30, down to Cedar Rapids or Eddyville — wherever it’s going.”

With increasing grain yields and heavier farm equipment, Kapucian said the quality of rural roads is crucial to get that grain to market.

“We have more and more corn being produced off every acre every year, the soybeans — we just have to have an infrastructure to be able to compete worldwide and help feed the world and that’s one of the reasons why, as much as I do not like a tax increase, I feel it’s imperative,” Kapucian sai. “We have to take a look at this at this time.”

Senator Matt McCoy, a Democrat from Des Moines, is the third co-signer who helped the proposal clear a subcommittee this afternoon.

“We’re the third worst state in the nation in terms of bridge deficiencies and in the state of Iowa we’ve got a multi-billion dollar problem and kicking the can down the road is no longer an option,” McCoy said. 

Increasing the state gas tax by a dime over the next two years would raise an additional $220 million for the state’s road fund.

As for those other tax proposals, the Senate Ways and Means Committee this afternoon approved a bill that would increase a tax break for low income Iowans who qualify for the federal “Earned Income Tax Credit.” Republican Governor Terry Branstad vetoed a similar proposal twice last year, but Senator Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat from Iowa City, is hoping the third time’s a charm.

“And get a much-needed tax cut to people that can really use the help,” Bolkcom said. Most Iowa families with an annual income of $45,000 or less qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the proposal now pending in the senate would almost double the state credit for those households.

The third tax-related proposal considered at the statehouse Wednesday deals with cutting commercial property taxes. House Republicans have made some adjustments in their plan. Representative Tom Sands of Wapello says they’ve abandoned one of Republican Governor Branstad’s ideas on the subject that was intended to address some of the objections from cities and counties.

“I think they have some valid concerns and we tried to address them and listen to them,” Sands says. “But every time we tried to meet that, they come up with a different concern or the same concern that that one won’t work.”

The mayors from Iowa’s 10 largest cities held a news conference at the statehouse earlier today to say cities need “more, not less” tax revenue.  Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee voted this evening to approve the GOP’s latest version of commercial property tax reform.

The Hawkeyes will be at home for two games this week beginning with Thursday’s matchup against Minnesota. She says the Gopher’s record is deceiving as one of the wins is against Ohio State.

Iowa will also host Michigan State on Sunday and with a 6-5 Big Ten record and 14-10 overall mark this week gives the Hawks a chance to boost their post-season hopes.

U.N.I. coach Ben Jacobson has been impressed by the way his team reacted to those early struggles.

“Our guys have done a terrific job of staying together, a terrific job of preparing themselves in light of losing a couple of close games in league play, and they deserve a lot of credit for that,” Jacobson says. He says it would have been easy to split up and not stay on the same page with those type of loses.

Wichita State is tied with Creighton at the top of the Valley standings. The Shockers boast one of the top post players in the league in seven-footer Garrett Stutz, who Jacobson says is a rare talent in the Valley. Jacobson says Stutz is playing at a very high level right now and they will try a lot of different things to try and slow him down.

Beside Stutz at 7 feet, Jacobson says that Wichita brings a lot of size at all positions. The Shockers won the earlier meeting against the Panthers by a 71-68 tally.

By Jesse Gavin, KCNZ, Cedar Falls

2011 flooding in western Iowa.

The National Weather Service is changing how it measures the depths of Iowa’s waterways, which also means a change in how much water will be needed to prompt the issuing of flood warnings.

Senior hydrologist, Jeff Zogg, says they’re shifting 44 of the 47 river forecast points across the state’s midsection.

“The reason we’re changing the flood stages and the flood categories across central Iowa is to give our flood warnings more meaning,” Zogg says. “We want to be sure that when we issue a river flood warning for a given location, that it actually means that something is going to occur.”

The National Weather Service office in Johnston serves 51 counties in central Iowa. He says the changes will impact about 30 rivers and streams across that area. “Over the years, due to mitigation activities, locations that may have been affected at a given stage are no longer impacted,” Zogg says.

“That requires us to raise the flood stage and the flood categories.” Almost all of the changes in river forecasting markers are being moved upward, meaning, a warning won’t be issued now until floodwaters reach a higher point.

“Many people have probably become used to us issuing river flood warnings for levels that don’t have much impact,” Zogg says. “Going forward, the flood warnings we do issue will definitely have more impact. They’re keyed in to impacts to life and property in the locations we do flood warnings for, so, they definitely need to pay attention to these flood warnings.”

Zogg anticipates the changes will mean a 50% reduction in the number of flood warnings the office issues this next year, versus previous years. The National Weather Service is scheduled to release its annual flood forecast for Iowa next Thursday, February 16th.

Learn more about the changes at “www.weather.gov/dmx“.

“I probably can’t begin without saying if we build it they will come,” Bowman said. He went on to explain that the tax break would boost the rural economy by helping investors preserve the movie site and add a youth sport complex for traveling teams.

He says it’s estimated the expanded site would generate $272-million in revenues over 10 years with 95% of that money coming from out of state. Bowman said the project would get a sales tax rebate on sales that would never have happened without the expansion, so the state has no skin in the game.

But Senator Jack Whitver, a Republican from Ankeny, did not sign on. “It’s just I don’t want to be in the middle of deciding who wins and who loses in government,” Whitver said. In other words giving a tax break to the Field of Dreams project, but not for some other youth sports complex.

“At this time I’m just not comfortable saying we like you we’re going to let you succeed and not you in Ankeny or Sioux City or Council Bluffs,” Whitver said.

“Go the Distance Baseball” is seeking investors to underwrite the $38-million facility. Spokesman David Adelman says the tax break is important to the project.

“It significantly affects our ability to go towards investors, saying that the state is not interested in participating,” Adelman said. Under the bill, the project dubbed “Allstar Ballpark Heaven” would get a sales tax rebate for 10 years or up to 16-million-dollars once they’re up and running.

A similar tax break helped create the Iowa Speedway in Newton. The bill advances to the Senate Economic Growth Committee.

Chinese Counsel General General Yang Guoqaing, Governor Branstad, Lieutenant Governor Reynolds.

Preparations continue for what Governor Terry Branstad has suggested may be one of the diplomatic events of the century in Iowa.

China’s vice president is due to visit Muscatine, then Des Moines next week and the Chinese consul general based in Chicago traveled to Iowa today to speak with reporters about the trip.

“Vice President Xi’s visit will truly enhance the friendship and it will truly bring more people-to-people exchanges between our two countries,” he said during a news conference in Governor Branstad’s office.

Branstad revealed most of the details of Xi Jingping’s visit earlier this week. He’ll be the guest at an elaborate banquet inside the state capitol next Wednesday night. Branstad plans to invite all 150 legislators, the top judges in Iowa’s court system and some key Iowa business leaders to the event.

“We hope that he goes away feeling as good about Iowa this time as he did when he came here the first time in 1985,” Governor Branstad said this afternoon.

Xi was a party leader in his province when he led a delegation from China to Iowa as part of a “sister-state”exchange. During that trip, Xi stayed with a family in Muscatine and he plans to reconnect with those folks next Wednesday. The consul general told reporters Xi has fond memories of his visit.

“It’s a truly, truly very touching story that such a high, senior level official…still remembered every scene, every movement, every member of the friends and families very vividly,” Chinese Consul General Yang Guoqaing said.

AUDIO of today’s news conference.

Iowa’s governor has been suggesting there are many ways in which Iowa can benefit, economically, from cementing relationships with the Chinese, from expanding exports of raw ag commodities to extending the retirement plans offered by Des Moines-based Principal Financial into Chinese cities where that country’s aging middle class is searching for options that would provide some sort of financial security beyond their work years.

Governor Branstad on Monday likened Xi’s visit to Iowa as on par with Pope John Paul’s visit to Living History Farms in 1979 and Soviet President Nikita Kruschev to an Iowa farm in 1959.

“There is a very different institutional approach to this in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps than there is in the Air Force,” Braley explains. “The Air Force has a large number of aircraft that are very expensive and very costly to maintain. And they seem to be taking an emphasis that preserves more of their existing active-duty fighter planes and aircraft.”

Braley says the Air Force is also looking to expand the use of unmanned drones. He says the Air Force has tried to justify closing the fighter wing in Des Moines by suggesting it be replaced by a drone program.

“But that’s not what we’re talking about, we’re talking about comparing apples to apples and that’s how that fighter wing compares with other Air National Guard units around the country. And the numbers are compelling. That it ranks consistently at the top of all the objective measures of readiness and success, and that’s why this decision does not make sense,” Braley says.

He says the Iowa delegation will use the record of the Iowa unit as it pushes to keep it going. “And I think that if we have the opportunity tomorrow to sit down and calmly and rationally make the case to the Secretary of the Air Force about why this is a bad decision, and listen to his justification for it, I think we will have the best opportunity to have an influence on that decision,” Braley says.

The unit has 21 F-16 jets and some 1,000 personnel that keep the unit running.

Fire destroyed a building in downtown Marshalltown today.

An overnight fire in Marshalltown destroyed a downtown building. Fire Chief Steve Edwards says crews were called to the three-story building at 135 East Main Street in Marshalltown shortly before midnight.

“By the time our trucks got there, we already had flames coming out of the roof,” Edwards said. “So, we set up for a defensive fire attack and brought it under control after about an hour or hour-and-a-half.” The building housed a Hispanic grocery store. No one was injured.

A family living in the back of the building got out safely. The cause of the fire remains under investigation and officials have yet to determine a damage estimate.

“Two-thirds of the roof is gone and half of the wall on the east side is gone, so most likely, it’s going to be a total loss,” Edwards said. A fire wall on one side of the building is credited for helping keep the flames from spreading to nearby businesses.

By Lance Renaud, KFJB, Marshalltown