Posted December 26, 2013in Civic Skinny
Here’s an astounding fact: The last time there was a Congressional race in Polk County without an incumbent seeking re-election was in 1940. GOP Rep. Cassius Dowell, a Des Moines lawyer first elected to Congress in 1915, died on Feb. 4, 1940, and Republican Robert K. Goodwin — of the
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Posted December 18, 2013in Civic Skinny
Twelve drummers drumming… …oh so vigorously for Phil Dorweiler and his many Kirke in-laws, especially Bob and Laurel…loud enough to be heard through vinyl windows for James and Roxanne Conlin…to thank councilman Ted Ohmart of West Des Moines for 16 years of fine service…and to welcome new councilman Rick Messerschmidt…for
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Posted December 11, 2013in Civic Skinny
“What I’ve always really most admired about Tyler is he’s a family guy,” Tyler Olson’s wife, Sarah, says in a campaign video supporting her husband’s effort to get the Democratic nomination to run against Gov. Terry Branstad. She and the couple’s two young children figure prominently in the video. Perhaps
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Posted December 04, 2013in Civic Skinny
Were matters so out of hand in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Cedar Rapids three years ago that one lawyer there feared for her safety, feared that she might be shot by another lawyer there? And was her boss scared, too? When then-U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose — now federal district
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Posted November 27, 2013in Civic Skinny
Your tax and tuition dollars at work: University of Iowa Music Professor Christine Getz will spend the fall semester next year in Milan, Italy, preparing “a critical edition with historical introduction and commentary of Andrea Cima’s II Secondo Libro Delli Concerti (1627)” and will also “investigate the relationship of the
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Posted November 20, 2013in Civic Skinny
There’s still a multi-million-dollar shortfall in the financing scheme for a new convention hotel near Hy-Vee Hall, but the gap will close and a 450-room hotel definitely will be built, public officials and private business leaders say. They say the two finalists are proposals from developers and contractors Weitz of
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Posted November 13, 2013in Civic Skinny
Life’s backstage dramas: In a lovely little ceremony, The REACH program at the University of Iowa on Thursday named a suite of offices after former Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson, who was instrumental in getting the university to launch the program for students with autism, Down’s Syndrome and other intellectual challenges.
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Posted November 06, 2013in Civic Skinny
Why would Bill Knapp back Terry Branstad for governor? Bill Knapp — who spent what a less-rich man would call a fortune in trying to get Branstad out of office for a generation or two. Bill Knapp — who is the first guy Democrats call on when they’re thinking of
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Posted October 30, 2013in Civic Skinny
The fact-checker: No. 1. “More Iowans are working now than at any point in our state’s history,” Tim Albrecht, Gov. Terry Branstad’s communications director, said the other day. Not really. At latest report, nonfarm employment in Iowa was 1,518,200. According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, in May of
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Posted October 23, 2013in Civic Skinny
Republican Congressman Tom Latham has raised close to $1 million in his effort to keep the seat he won last year when he moved into Iowa’s newly designed Third Congressional District. His opponent, Democrat Staci Appel, has raised a bit more than $250,000, according to reports filed the other day
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