May 21, 2013

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Governor Branstad “likes” Facebook’s decision to locate a data center in Altoona

April 23, 2013 By
Governor Terry Branstad.

Governor Terry Branstad

Governor Terry Branstad traveled to Altoona today to make the official announcement that social media giant Facebook will be building a $300 million data center in the Des Moines suburb.

Altoona Mayor Skip Conkling made the opening statement at a news conference at Altoona City Hall.

“This is a glorious day for the City of Altoona and a glorious day for the State of Iowa,” Conkling said. “Anytime that you attract and secure a business of this quality and size, it’s time for celebration.”

Conkling said the city and state negotiated with Facebook officials for roughly a year and a half without spilling news of the massive project.

“It’s no secret anymore, folks,” Conkling said to laughs from a packed city council chamber. This morning, the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) Board approved $18 million in tax benefits to lure the Facebook project. Governor Terry Branstad said company officials could have selected another Midwest state to build the data center.

“The negotiations weren’t easy. They were…I would say one of the more prolonged ones I’ve been involved in,” Branstad said. “But, all’s well that ends well. We’re so excited to win a prize like this. I mean, Facebook is certainly a well-known name and is one of the exciting, modern success stories. We’re so proud they’ve chosen Altoona.”

Facebook currently has two other data server farms in the U.S. – located in Prineville, Oregon and Forest City, North Carolina. The first phase of the project in Altoona will involve a 476,000 square foot data center utilizing an outdoor-air cooling system.

Jay Parikh, vice president of infrastructure engineering for Facebook, said two more data centers could eventually be built on the 194-acre site in Altoona. He expects 31 people will be employed at the data center when the first building opens late next year or in early 2015.

Branstad-Altoona

Governor Branstad talks about the Facebook announcement.

“In Prineville, Oregon, we have 70 full-time workers at the data center. In Forest City (North Carolina), we have about 80 full-time Facebook employees,” Parikh said.

“I think 31 (workers in Altoona) is our minimum commitment, but if you look at the other regions, you’d probably be able to guess that we’ll go higher.”

In his closing remarks, Branstad said Facebook played a role in his decision to seek another term as governor in 2010.

“A few years ago, I was happily serving as the President of Des Moines University when it was brought to my attention that a couple of law students at Drake University started a movement on Facebook to draft me to run for governor again,” Branstad said, laughing.

“First of all, Facebook didn’t exist when I was governor before and (the Drake students) weren’t old enough to vote.” Branstad previously served as Iowa’s governor from 1983-1999. He was President at DMU from 2003-2009.

The IEDA Board today also awarded direct financial assistance and tax benefits to four other projects in Clarion, Lime Springs, Independence, and Council Bluffs. 
Here is more information on the IEDA’s actions today:

  •  Hagie Manufacturing to expand operations in Clarion
    Hagie Manufacturing Company, a three-generation family business, provides innovative crop protection and application solutions out of its Clarion, Iowa location. In 1947, Ray Hagie invented the world’s first self-propelled sprayer and founded Hagie Manufacturing. Three generations, millions of acres and over 66 years later, Hagie Manufacturing Company’s innovative crop protection solutions enhance versatility, advance capability and increase efficiency, to optimize their customers’ growth. The IEDA board awarded Hagie $850,000 in direct financial assistance and tax benefits to expand their production capability by adding new manufacturing methods, upgrading their current production equipment and expanding meeting and training facilities. Hagie is also escalating their current research and development both in space and workforce. The project is expected to create 150 new jobs and represents a $19.5 million capital investment.
  •  Lime Springs Beef, Lime Springs
    Lime Springs Beef (LSB) was organized as a LLC in February 2012 to capitalize on significant opportunity and demand in the food industry for local sourcing. The IEDA award will allow LSB to ensure all LSB beef products will come from animals raised by certified LSB producers whose farm is within 100 miles of the plant, with every finished product digitally tracked, processed, and ultimately labeled with the operation and farm on which the donor animal was raised. The IDEA Board awarded Lime Springs Beef $500,000 in direct financial assistance and tax benefits to expand their operations and create 50 jobs. The project represents a capital investment of $5.4 million.
  •  Tyson Pet Products, Independence
    Tyson Pet Products produces dog treats sold under three brands at its Independence facility. The expansion of the Tyson Pet Products facility will essentially triple the production capacity of chicken jerky dog treats at this location. The IEDA Board awarded tax incentives to the project to create 133 jobs and make a capital investment of $22.9 million.
  • Project Amendment, Google to expand Council Bluffs location again
    The board today approved an amendment request from Google, Inc., to increase the project budget of its April 2012 High Quality Jobs award. The company is proposing to increase the investment of its previous project by $400 million. Additional tax benefits in the maximum amount of $7.2 million were awarded in the form of a refund of sales and use taxes paid during construction.
Filed Under: Business, Featured Story, News Tagged With: , ,

Governor says details of Facebook deal coming Tuesday (AUDIO)

April 22, 2013 By
Governor Terry Branstad talks with reporters.

Governor Terry Branstad talks with reporters.

Governor Terry Branstad is mum about a big economic development deal set to be revealed tomorrow.

 The Des Moines Register reports Facebook plans to build a $1 billion data center in Altoona, a suburb just to the east of Des Moines.

“We don’t talk about economic development prospects until the people, the company that we’re working with is ready to announce it,” Branstad said this morning.

“We’ve been working on a project for about a year, but I think it can jeopardize the likelihood that these things will happen if they’re leaked prematurely and so we think that’s inappropriate and I’m not going to talk about it until the announcement is ready to be made — and I think Tuesday’s the day it’s going to be announced.”

Google has invested over a billion dollars on a “server farm” in Council Bluffs and Microsoft runs a data center in West Des Moines.

Iowa is an attractive spot for the facilities, with its relatively cheap and available supply of electricity. The Des Moines Register reports the site Facebook is considering in Altoona is near a MidAmerican Energy power station. Governor Branstad was asked about the Facebook project this morning during his weekly news conference. Branstad would only acknowledge it was a “big” project — and he would not say the company’s name.

“We have been working and negotiating with this project, I think, probably for the better part of a year, maybe even more than a year,” Branstad said, “but in a big and important project like that it’s important to maintain confidentiality and to work in good faith and our economic development people have done that with this, as they have on many other projects.”

Branstad will not reveal what state incentives have been offered to Facebook. The governor told reporters to attend the announcement on Tuesday to learn those details.

AUDIO of governor’s weekly news conference

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

Supreme Court says monopoly still exists for hard line phone company

April 12, 2013 By

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that the major hard wire phone provider in the state still has monopoly status and can be charged a different tax rate than wireless providers. Qwest communications initiated the suit after the Iowa Department of Revenue assessed its property in 2006.

Qwest argued it no longer has the monopoly on phone service it once had and it is unconsitutional to tax its equipment and personal property in Iowa while not imposing the same tax on wireless providers. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the difference in the tax treatment is rationally related to legitimate state interests in encouraging the development of new competitive telecommunications infrastructure.

The Supreme Court acknowledged that the number of wireless phone customers has rapidly increased and surpassed the number of hard line customers, but it said that Qwest still maintains a monopoly on hardline customers. It was noted that at the time of the suit, 85-percent of the wireless customers still had a hard line, so wireless lines are not necessarily a susbstitute for hard lines.

The Supreme Court ruling reversed the judgement of the district court and upheld the State Board of Tax Review’s assessment on Qwest. The assessment of Qwest’s property had originally been over one-billion dollars, but was later dropped to $780-million.

Qwest is now known as CenturyLink after a  company merger.

See the complete ruling here:  Qwest tax ruling PDF

Filed Under: Business, Crime & Courts, News Tagged With:

Ice and wind snap power lines in northwest Iowa

April 11, 2013 By

Northwest Iowa has been hit hard by the latest winter storm to move into Iowa. Alliant Energy spokesman, Ryan Stensland, says ice and wind took their toll on power lines Wednesday.

“These lines are designed to withstand about three-quarters to an inch of ice and they’re designed to withstand 70 to 90 mile-an-hour sustained winds. But when you put those two together, the lines start to get moving, the ice on those lines creates a lot of weight and it starts to pull on those lines downward and eventually those poles will snap,” Stensland says.

He said late Wednesday crews were out trying to make repairs to snapped poles and lines, but conditions were dangerous with the high winds. “They may have just got done clearing away some tree branches off a power line and a gust of wind will come up and it knocks down another part of the tree into the power line because there’s so much weight on the trees and on the lines right now,” Stensland explains, “So, a pretty dangerous situation.”

He says crews are trying to make some headway, but he says they have to be careful. “Really the first priority is the safety of our crews. They are going to do the best that they can to try and get to where the outages are and get the power restored,” Stensland says.

“But we also want their safety to be the first priority. So, they’re being constantly reminded to not try and push the envelope.” Stensland says unless there is a major change in conditions today, not all the power will be back on right away.

“Customers will be without power for a day or two, so they should plan accordingly,” Stensland says. The majority of the problems are near the northern border of the state.

“You’re talking about Osceola County, Emmet, those are a couple of the hardest hit areas. We did have some outages down in Dickinson County and then it extends northward up into southern Minnesota,” according to Stensland. “Primarily the towns in Iowa that have been hardest hit are George, Little Rock, the Sibley has been pretty hard hit, and the Matlock area.”

He says a lot of rural electric coops and municipal utilities) are having some issues with outages. Stensland says some 4,200 Alliant Customers were without power late Wednesday. One report said some 1,300 rural electric coop customers had lost power due to downed power lines.

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

Ice takes down power lines in northwest Iowa

April 10, 2013 By

The wintery mix of weather that’s sweeping through the state has left hundreds of people without power. Up to one inch of ice has coated trees and power lines in northwest Iowa. Gaylene Eshuis is the Operations Coordinator with Northwest Rural Electric Cooperative.

“We’ve been noticing as the wind picks up, there’s definitely ice on the lines…so that’s been causing problems,” Eshuis said. “We’ve also had poles break and some trees are getting into the lines.”

Early this afternoon, more than 1,300 rural electric cooperative customers throughout northwest Iowa were without power as a result of the storm. MidAmerican Energy also had several hundred customers without power — mostly in the Sioux City area.

By Dennis Morrice, KLEM, LeMars

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

Branstad withdraws nominees for Utilities Board, Transportation Commission

April 8, 2013 By

Governor Terry Branstad has withdrawn the nominations of two former state legislators to key positions in state government.

Branstad had asked former state Representative Nick Wagner — a Republican from Marion — to serve on the Iowa Utilities Board. The governor asked former state Senator Tom Rielly — a Democrat from Oskaloosa — to serve on the Iowa Transportation Commission. Democrats in the senate weren’t willing to support Wagner’s nomination. Some raised concerns about his support of a new nuclear power plant. Others said Wagner was hard to work with when he was a legislator.

Senate Republican Leader Bill Dix says it’s “disappointing” Wagner’s nomination to the utilities board has been withdrawn.

“Nick is a good guy and, given the opportunity, I think he’d do a great job,” Dix says.

Republicans had placed a hold on Rielly’s nomination to the Transportation Commission, preventing senators from taking a vote. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal notified Branstad about the situation, but Gronstal says it was the governor’s decision to withdraw both nominations.

“I neither recommended it or discouraged it,” Gronstal says, “and he’s made this choice.”

Rielly’s nomination got linked to the controversy surrounding two of Branstad’s nominees for the Board of Regents. It’s likely both Robert Cramer and current Board president Craig Lang will lose confirmation votes this week.

April 15 is the deadline for senators to vote on Branstad’s nominees for state boards and commissions. At least 34 senators must vote yes for a nominee to be confirmed.

Branstad could appoint the two former legislators to the Utilities Board and the Transportation Commission in May, let the two men serve ’til next year and have the senate take a vote on their nominations then. A nominee is ineligible to serve if they are voted down in the senate.

“It is clear that these two fine individuals were going to be collateral damage in the larger fight over the Regents nominees,” Tim Albrecth, a spokesman for Governor Branstad, said in a written statement. “The governor is withdrawing their names to preserve all of his options once session has ended. A decision has not been made with regard to who might fill these positions, and when.”

(This story was updated at 2:07 p.m. with additional information.)

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

Branstad nominee for utilities board faces confirmation trouble

April 6, 2013 By
Nick Wagner

Nick Wagner

The former Republican legislator Governor Branstad nominated to serve on the Iowa Utilities Board may not win confirmation from the Democratically led Iowa Senate.

Republican Nick Wagner, a former state representative from Marion, lost his 2012 bid for reelection. Branstad asked him to become a state utility regulator, but Wagner has to win the support of 34 senators to be confirmed for the job. If all 24 Republicans in the senate vote for Wagner, as expected, 10 Democrats would have to vote for him as well — but Democrats have notified Branstad that is unlikely.

“I think this partisan politics needs to stop,” Branstad said during an interview in his statehouse office. “I can’t understand why they wouldn’t choose somebody like him who is an engineer, something that I think could be a real great asset on that board.”

Wagner is an electrical engineer. The utilities board regulates Iowa’s water, natural gas and electric utilities. Democrats say Wagner was not a good listener when he was a legislator.

“This is Washington, D.C.-style politics and I’m really disappointed to hear that sort of thing,” Branstad said.

Branstad said it is “absolutely wrong” for senators to reject Wagner for the job.

“Nick Wagner really has great credentials both from his experience in the legislature as well as his background in engineering and I would hope that they would reconsider,” Branstad said.

Wagner is 39 years old. If he’s confirmed for the post, all three members of the Iowa Utilities Board would be former legislators. Democrats say that’s a concern, and they also say none of the three are lawyers either. Branstad said there’s no requirement that any of the utilities board members be an attorney.

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