Winners

In a move that helped assure us that all old people aren't completely off their fucking rockers, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley finally fessed up that the Iowa Rain Forest project - subject to nationwide ridicule after Grassley porked Congress for $50 million to get it going - might be a non-starter. Grassley, of course, has been hinting for months that the project, which was laughed out of Des Moines, might be (gasp!) in trouble, as the group in charge has come up with a pocketful of lint in matching funds. But last week the Iowa dinosaur told Ted Townsend and Co. that they have two years to get their collective shit together or he will pull the plug. "I want to make sure the tax money isn't frittered away," Grassley told reporters without so much as a thigh slap or a grin. Some $2.9 million of the grant has already been spent on jet fuel and sack lunches so that project leader David Oman can "woo" people who look at him when he's finished with his presentation and ask, "Rain Forest?"

Losers

In the run-up to the vote on the largest annexation in Iowa's history last week, "Vote No" signs lined the yards of nearly every home along a one-mile-plus stretch of 64th Street, just east of the metro, like tombstones for public trust. Just the latest, most visible form of organized opposition from the group Citizens for Responsible Annexation, the signs followed seven years of legal battles and corruption allegations from the likes of its leader, John Anderson, who argued vehemently that, by gobbling up 6,000 acres on the southeast and northeast edges of the city, Des Moines was over-extending its resources and trampling rural resident rights to remain outside the stranglehold of urban taxes. In fact, so offensive was the scheme to his conception of democracy that he wrote in a brief to the Iowa Supreme Court that if the municipal land-grab was given the go-ahead "the Iowa Constitution isn't worth the parchment it's written on." Well, don't trash that Constitution just yet. Last week, before the polls closed and the annexation passed by more than 2,000 votes, and before Anderson started burning up Cityview phone lines to report that the whole balloting process was "a mess," the near-Carlisle resident filed papers with Polk County District court once again, charging a city attorney who worked on the proposal with lying under oath. Sure, government officials are, at times, "corrupt and lying," as Anderson has alleged, and annexations often sell out rural residents to the interests of developers under the guise of supposed "smart growth," but at some point it's best to stop beating a dead horse. No doubt, there will be plenty of other rotten schemes deserving of litigation and outrage to come.

We're not one to throw bouquets at the feet of Register exposŽs, but the piece that recently ran regarding certain developers' interest in an Ankeny interchange was some good stuff. Was it a secret that there was some winking and nudging going on? Not if you read Civic Skinny in Cityview every week, which also pointed out first that former DOT chief Mark Wandro - who was involved in every step of the project - was leaving his post to go work for Snyder & Associates, a company that is also a beneficiary of the project. But what was a secret was just how stupid a handful of local officials think we really are. A project like this, the Register pointed out, can take decades to complete, but not this one. This project, which draws about as much traffic as some driveways, took a mere five years. But there was nothing shady going on, no one was getting screwed, no one was abusing the public trust. "You don't do it because some guy wants to make a buck. Nobody's going to go back to their council or board and say, 'I need $5 million to help Bill Knapp build something,'" former Polk County Board of Supervisor Jack Bishop told the daily. And we believe him. People who give hundred of thousands of dollars to political candidates and get special attention in return only happens everywhere else. CV

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