Winners

After eight years at the helm of Des Moines public schools, Eric Witherspoon bid farewell last week at a public reception hosted by the district. Although the outgoing superintendent doesn't officially depart until the end of the month, the district's teachers, parents and especially its 30,000 students have reason to rejoice with the hiring of a new superintendent, Nancy Sebring. Witherspoon was a lightning rod during his tenure, particularly after he championed a 1-cent local option sales tax to pay for outdated and crumbling schools - only to announce that the cash would actually be used to close certain neighborhood schools and build new ones in other parts of the city, a move that left many district parents and employees feeling disenfranchised. Witherspoon's ties to business and private interests have also garnered the scrutiny of more than a few onlookers, who claim he was more interested in political positioning than in pupils. While we understand the frustration of Des Moines' black community leaders who were upset that longtime district vet Linda Lane (an African-American) was passed by for the job, we also think that anyone is better than Witherspoon at this point. Sebring inherits a tough position; here's hoping she works to heal the deep rifts Witherspoon leaves in his wake.

Recognizing that "Iowa is arguably the most [ecologically] altered state in America," the Iowa chapter of the Nature Conservancy is ramping up a $9.5 million campaign to protect one of Iowa's most valuable assets. (It's not meth.) The "Saving the Last Great Places in Iowa Campaign" targets six locales it classifies as "ecologically threatened." The funding will go toward protecting prairies, watersheds and species habitat for creatures like prairie rattlesnakes and bobolinks, as well as reintroducing bison to the Loess Hills area. Interestingly, among the campaign's biggest corporate donors is Monsanto, which is ranked as one of the worst corporations in America in our cover story this week for cranking out cancer-causing products that wreak havoc on the environment. Smells to us like corporate green-washing on Monsanto's part, but the Conservancy's site says that the organization's "results-oriented, non-confrontational approach allows it to forge partnerships with private landowners, governments and corporations."

Losers

It's no different from any other primary. After months of intra-party barbs and pissing matches, the Dems are back into circle-jerk mode after the gubernatorial primary, cheesing it up at press-friendly "unity rallies" and making friendly with the very people they bashed relentlessly in the months leading up to June 6. It remains to be seen whether these rather transparent stabs at harmony will be enough to welcome in the nearly two-thirds of Dem voters who opposed primary victor Chet Culver by the time the general election rolls around. We're fully aware that Republicans would no doubt be in the same position if their candidate for gov, Jim Nussle, had faced any GOP opposition in the primary. But they aren't, and he didn't - which has the de facto effect of making the Dems look a tad petty.

Apparently, well-coifed suburbanites bitching about potholes constitutes Metro-section front-page news, in the eyes of the Des Moines Register. The outrage! The injustice! The June 7 story (accompanied by three giant photos, a map and a sidebar) details the plight of West Des Moines residents, who moved into their $300,000 to $400,000 homes only to find that the concrete in the roads running through their Westridge Estates development was "substandard," thanks to allegedly crooked concrete contractors. Now, we're not knocking the fact that the Register printed the story. We actually applaud them for keeping residents abreast of important community issues, such as the possible misdeeds of local developers. But hogging two-thirds of page 1B? Not so much. We can't help but wonder whether the same play would be given to a story about crumbling Valley Junction or East Side Des Moines roads (now those roads will teach your alignment a lesson it won't forget), or any roads, for that matter, located in lower-income zip codes. Somehow, working-class people standing near a pothole aren't quite as glamorous. CV

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