Posted February 13, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
More on the fallout from Tom Harkin’s decision not to run again in 2014. It’s becoming more and more clear there will be primaries in both parties as state politicians eye the First District Congressional seat that Bruce Braley will vacate as he seeks Harkin’s seat. And it’s becoming more
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Posted February 06, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
When the rich and the powerful get pissed off (continued): When last we left the great vinyl-window-vs.-wood-window dispute, James and Roxanne Conlin had hired Doug Gross — yeah, that’s pretty interesting in itself — to sue the City of Des Moines over the weighty issue of whether the Conlins can
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Posted January 30, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
There have been four spectacular Democrats in Iowa in the past 50 years: Harold Hughes, Neal Smith, Tom Vilsack and Tom Harkin. Harold Hughes fathered the community-college system and liquor by the drink, fundamentally changing the state. Neal Smith provided Iowa with everything Mother Nature didn’t — lakes and greenways,
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Posted January 23, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
No one is issuing any press releases, but the plan to move the downtown YMCA to the old convention center is all but a done deal. The money is pledged. By the time the convention complex is purchased and remodeled and an indoor, 50-meter pool and other facilities are added
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Posted January 16, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz, who is turning over every rock and checking every driver’s license and database in his search for persons who are voting illegally, is on his website advising tens of thousands of disenfranchised Iowans that it’s OK if they vote. Huh? Let’s say you are
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Posted January 09, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Circulation of the Sunday and daily Des Moines Register has fallen more than 7 percent in the past year, the newspapers’ audit reports show. The drops accelerated after June 1, when the newspapers raised subscription prices by more than 30 percent and forced print customers to pay for digital access
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Posted January 02, 2013in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Hell hath no fury like a lawyer scorned. The Iowa Supreme Court last week ruled — unanimously — that a Fort Dodge dentist did not unlawfully discriminate against his dental assistant when he fired her because his wife felt the attractive younger woman posed a threat to their marriage. There
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Posted December 26, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Politics makes strange bedfellows.Or bedfellows make strange politics. Roxanne Conlin, high-profile lawyer and onetime Democratic candidate for governor and, later, for senator, and her husband, developer James Conlin, have sued the city of Des Moines, and last week the suit was moved to federal district court. It’s all about windows.
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Posted December 19, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Twelve drummers drumming… …but not as loud as the Isiserettes for new Drake basketball coach Jenny Lillis Baranczyk…for each and every Nada…and banker Kim Gillespie, now Kim Willis…for the two great teen-aged athletes in the Mike Grasso family — hockey player Patrick and golfer Victoria — and for police officer
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Posted December 12, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
You don’t stop and think much about Iowa Public Television. It’s just there. There with the news, with the debates, with “Iowa Press” and “Market to Market.” There at the State Fair, at the World Food Prize, at this lecture and that event. It’s always at the news, but it’s
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