Melanie Johnson, the Krauses v. the Mosses, and a math test
Melanie Johnson got screwed. That’s the consensus of people who work with her, who have worked with her and who have dealt with her during the 26 years that she has been a lawyer for the Department of Economic Development and its predecessors. They are astounded that she was fired the other day as part of the fallout from the film-tax-credit scandal in the state.
“Melanie is absolutely clean on this whole thing, and any role she had was after the fact when her agency people were seeking her legal advice for the agency,” says a lawyer who was shocked by the firing and called around to see what he could find out. “She’s the moral compass of the department.” After she was brought into the matter, she sent or was sent some e-mails — in no way incriminating or out-of-line — so her name and the e-mails were mentioned in a Des Moines Register story.
“It sounds like [Gov.] Culver read the paper, looked at his 36-percent approval rating and decided to clean the house a little bit more,” says a person closely involved. Johnson, the sixth person to lose her job in the scandal, was fired while taking a furlough day. She got a five-minute phone call saying, in humanresourcesspeak, “the director [Bret Mills] has determined your services are no longer required.” No reason was given. She was stunned by the phone call, friends say.
Johnson, who is 53 and has worked for the state since 1984, is known as a lawyer who pays close attention to the rules, to the law, and to the details. One guy who worked with her for several years says it was always a comfort knowing she had gone over the deals he was involved in. But the Department of Economic Development is a conglomeration of fiefs and principalities where some of the lords and princes — like Tom Wheeler, who used to run the film office till he was fired for handing out tax credits that were abused by film-makers and not watched over by the IDED — don’t always seek legal advice. The Register reported that Johnson was supposed to sign off on all new projects, but that isn’t the case. While Johnson drafted the template film contract, she never reviewed or signed off on the individual film deals and was never asked to, Skinny was told.
It’s unclear what Johnson will do next, but it’s clear she won’t be having dinner with the governor or lunch with Mills. ...
Life among the rich and famous (part of an ongoing series that is always complicated and usually only mildly interesting):
Kyle and Sharon Krause, of the Kum and Go Krauses, and Terry and Mariann Moss, of the jukebox and pinball-machine Mosses, were neighbors in the Glen Oaks gated community. The Krauses built a home there in 1993, the Mosses in 1995. Two years later, the Krauses bought two-and-a-half lots adjoining their property, with the idea of combining three-and-a-half lots into a single plat, which would, among other things, save them money on association dues. They received the permission, cutely calling the new land Little Leaf Acres.
Later, the Krauses moved and sought to subdivide Little Leaf Acres into three lots with new boundaries, which, they were told, required approval of the ownership association and an architectural review committee. They were turned down by the architectural panel, but then they amended the plan to include a sale of a piece of their property to a neighbor — not the Mosses — while subdividing the rest. That was approved by the committee. Then the Krauses made a deal to sell one of the lots to the Mosses. They apparently did not seek approval of the owners association for any of this.
Lawyers then told the Mosses that they couldn’t obtain clear title to the lot they were buying because the owners association had not approved the Krause plan to subdivide. So the Mosses didn’t purchase the lot — and, represented by the Wandro law firm, sued the Krauses (represented by the Belin firm) to stop them from selling any of the subdivided land. The district court sided with the Krauses. But the Mosses appealed, and last week the State Court of Appeals sided with the Mosses and sent the case back to district court. And it assessed the costs of the appeal to the Krauses.
The moral: Sometimes it costs a lot of dough when you try to save a buck. …
Question you didn’t ask: “My child is interested in math. Should I send her to Iowa State University or The University of Iowa?” Answer: You might take this into consideration: At Iowa State University, if they have a group of 11 — in this case, a singing group — they call it Shy of a Dozen. At the University of Iowa, they call it “The Big Ten.” CV
