Posted September 04, 2019in Civic Skinny
The Governor’s office sat on more than $600,000 of legal bills from the Nyemaster law firm in the costly Chris Godfrey trial until the trial was over. The bills — which raise to nearly $2 million the cost to the taxpayers so far in defending the seven-year-old lawsuit — were
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Posted July 31, 2019in Civic Skinny
AUGUST 7 UPDATE: Christopher Godfrey’s attorneys have submitted bills of $4,130,673.38 for fees and expenses in the retaliation and discrimination lawsuit he won against former Gov. Terry Branstad and Brenna Findley Bird, who was counsel to the governor. The bills in the seven-and-a-half-year-old case follow a jury verdict of $1.5
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Posted July 03, 2019in Civic Skinny
Editor’s Note: Michael Gartner was out this month, so the rest of us scrubs pulled together the following. The Des Moines Social Club is “in financial hot water” and “looking to reorganize,” according to recent headlines. A nonprofit’s non-profitability isn’t ordinarily news, but the downtown entertainment venue is bankrolled largely
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Posted June 05, 2019in Civic Skinny
Titan Tire is a deadbeat. The company or its affiliates own those 38 acres at 16th Street and MLK Jr. Parkway on the edge of downtown, land where the soil is dangerous and the buildings are dilapidated. Demanding the site be cleaned up, the federal government has been suing them
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Posted May 01, 2019in Civic Skinny
The city of Des Moines has paid Mark Evans $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit he filed after hitting a 6-inch-high, unmarked curb the city built across what most bikers believed to be the bike path on MLK Parkway at 16th Street. The accident, around noon on April 16 of
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Posted April 03, 2019in Civic Skinny
Three things, perhaps in order of importance: Thing No. 1. Rejoice. Harry is here. Harry arrived without fanfare several months ago from London. He came on British Airways, hoping to avoid the fate of his older brother, Simon, who came on United a couple of years ago and who unfortunately
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Posted March 06, 2019in Civic Skinny
A federal grand jury has charged Marty Tirrell with mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud and fraudulent use of another person’s credit card. The charges follow years of scams by the one-time sports broadcaster and talk-show host, scams in which he defrauded friends and
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Posted February 06, 2019in Civic Skinny
A federal grand jury has charged Marty Tirrell with mail fraud, wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud and fraudulent use of another person’s credit card. The charges follow years of scams by the one-time sports broadcaster and talk-show host, scams in which he defrauded friends and employers and advertisers
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Posted January 02, 2019in Civic Skinny
Iowa State University paid Drake University $300,000 to play that football game in Ames on Dec. 1. The figure apparently has not been reported. Drake also got 300 free tickets and free admission for the marching band, mascots and game workers. And parking passes for one truck, four buses and
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Posted December 05, 2018in Civic Skinny
Twelve drummers drumming… …for Gabriel Espinosa and the other 29 new citizens from 16 countries sworn in at a baseball game on July 3…and for Judge Robert Pratt, who swore them in… and the 40,000 or so (who knows?) undocumented immigrants who are changing the state for the better…and the
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