Winners

Drake University President David Maxwell is setting an example for others to follow by joining about 300 college presidents and chancellors nationwide in pledging to take concrete steps to make college campuses “climate neutral” to fight global warming. Maxwell, a charter signatory to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, says Drake will complete within a year an inventory of all greenhouse gas emissions and develop within two years a plan to make necessary reductions to meet “climate neutral” goals. Drake already has an active recycling program, one that averages more than 2.7 tons of paper, cardboard, plastic and glass recyclables each month and has increased the efficiency of its central plant’s heating and cooling system. But its willingness to take an honest look at its ecological impact and do something about it sets an example for others to follow when it comes to responsible corporate citizenship.

We weighed in on this before, but wanted to recognize the Des Moines City Council and City Manager Rick Clark for ignoring a plan and zoning commission’s recommendation to extend the time lapse between images for electronic billboards. The council voted to approve eight-second intervals instead of the recommended 20-second intervals. Some officials thought the signs were a distraction to motorists. As we stated before, it’s not the government’s right to regulate signs or any other form of advertising of a legal product, and it’s good that elected leaders understand that basic right.

The bickering and hand wringing over who will be the next president of the University of Iowa has ended. The Iowa Board of Regents last week unanimously approved the appointment of Sally Mason, ending a months-long, criticized search. Mason has been provost of Purdue University since 2001 and will become the university’s 20th president in August. Let the healing begin.

It looks good on paper: director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. But should former U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle become the first Iowan in more than 60 years to serve in the presidential Cabinet, succeeding Rob Portman as the Bush administration’s chief budget officer, he will have an uphill battle to fight on Capitol Hill. Despite his loyalty to Bush, Nussle is expected to be appointed, but he will have to deal with a Congress controlled by Democrats, fights over appropriations bills and threatened vetoes from Bush. Because he’s an Iowan, and understands resolve, we remain cautiously optimistic.

Losers

Iowa taxpayers are going to continue to take it in the shorts over the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium (CIETC) fiasco if the CIETC board doesn’t get its act together and stop running up lawyers’ fees and find a way for Iowa to repay the U.S. Department of Labor the $1.2 million CIETC allegedly misspent on six-figure salaries. We realize lawyers are needed here, but dragging out the affair could cost another $300,000 in attorney fees. And who pays them? You guessed it — taxpayers. Attorneys for the state and CIETC are negotiating how to repay the feds. One angle is to determine whether money can be recovered from former CIETC employees facing criminal charges. It’s an idea worth pursuing. Not only would it serve justice, it would help reduce the burden to taxpayers who in all likeliness will end up paying the bill.

Regardless of whether you think former Dallas County sheriff Brian Gilbert lucked out by getting probation instead of 10 years in prison for the theft of $120,000 seized from a suspected drug dealer, what was judge John Lloyd thinking when he declared “I will be second-guessed on that to no end. I don’t know whether this is the right decision or not.” Such comments do little to restore the public’s waning faith in our court system.

Rightfully so, the Texas Rangers’ Sammy Sosa received little fanfare for hitting his 600th career home run last week against his old team, the Chicago Cubs. Save for a few clueless, geeky Cubs fans that still think Sammy’s the greatest, the rest of the baseball world collectively yawned. Why? Besides the fact most people can’t stand Sosa’s disingenuous, selfish attitude [he came out of retirement to pursue No. 600], like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, they will forever suspect that Sosa’s late-career surge in power was due to the use of anabolic steroids, human growth hormones and other performance-enhancing substances [in 2003 he was also caught using a corked bat], therefore tainting his accomplishments.

Soil and weather conditions this spring could have adverse effects on corn crops, which is bad news for Iowa farmers, and perhaps, consumers. Agronomists say crop stress associated with nitrogen deficiency caused by the large amounts of rain we have received has resulted in higher than normal leaching of fertilizers applied earlier in the season. Iowans may recall that in 1994 an extended wet spring resulted in nearly 75 percent of tested fields in some areas of the state were nitrogen deficient, which affected yields and prices at the supermarket. CV

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