Posted May 15, 2013in Civic Skinny
No one seems to have noticed, but Jim Leach has resigned as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, a job he has held since August of 2009. Leach, a Republican, served 30 years in Congress from eastern Iowa before he was upset by Dave Loebsack in 2006. Two
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Posted May 08, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
No shoes, no shirt, no paycheck: There will be a dress code for Des Moines Register workers after they move to Capital Square next month. They’re being told about it at meetings this week. Laura Hollingsworth will continue to oversee the Register from her new job as publisher of The
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Posted May 01, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Edward P. Hagen is an obstetrician who practiced in Sioux City with Siouxland Obstetrics and Gynecology, P.C. from 1993 until November of 2009, when he was fired by his three partners. In May of 2011, he sued his former partners in federal court in Sioux City, charging everything from fraud
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Posted April 24, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Iowa Public Radio has a “commitment to openness and transparency,” lawyer Wayne Reames told The Des Moines Register the other day. Oh. But, of course, it is not subject to the Iowa Open Meetings law, he has told Cityview, because it is not a governmental body. Sure, its licenses are
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Posted April 17, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
James Harlan has been evicted from the Capitol in Washington and is being sent back to Iowa. It isn’t the first time he has been sent home. Harlan was a noted and notable — and at times notorious — politician of the 1800s. He was the third Iowan to serve
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Posted April 10, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
The Des Moines Register had a little two-paragraph item in the sports section the other day that said Iowa State University made $15,366 from its participation in the Liberty Bowl. The university got $964,500 in bowl revenue and had $949,134 in bowl expenses, the item noted. Geez, Skinny wondered, how
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Posted April 03, 2013in Civic Skinny
Will Staci Appel become the first woman to represent Iowa in Congress? The former legislator tells Cityview she is “strongly considering” running for the seat now held by Republican Tom Latham. It would be an expensive run against a well-financed incumbent, and Appel says she is “working on a potential
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Posted March 20, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Maybe Iowa Public Radio should do a special report on organizations that abuse and misuse the Iowa Open Meetings and Open Records laws. The reporter wouldn’t have to leave the office. As Cityview pointed out two weeks ago, the closed meeting in February in which the IPR board decided to
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Posted March 13, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Cityview: “Dear [Rep. Josh] Byrnes. I write a column in Cityview, which sometimes is about politics. I’m told that you have told a few of your colleagues that you are considering switching parties. Is that so? And if so, why?” Rep. Byrnes: “I have a feeling something was taken out
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Posted March 06, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Maybe the board of Iowa Public Radio could have screwed things up more when it met and fired IPR chief executive Mary Grace Herrington last week, but it’s hard to see how. As starters, it was an illegal meeting. As enders, one of the seven directors broke a confidentiality agreement
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