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
Read More →
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
Read More →
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
Read More →
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
Read More →
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
Read More →
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
Read More →
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
Read More →
Posted October 31, 2018in Civic Skinny
How’s the new Hilton convention hotel doing in downtown Des Moines? Who knows? Somebody does — probably a lot of somebodies — but not you, even though as a taxpayer in Des Moines and in Polk County you, in effect, own the place. Hearing that the 330-room hotel might not
Read More →
Posted October 03, 2018in Civic Skinny
Teree Caldwell-Johnson is thinking of running for mayor next year. And Sheriff Bill McCarthy is thinking of retiring this year. Caldwell-Johnson, 62, is well-known in Des Moines. She was Polk County Manager from 1996 to 2003, is the very visible chief executive of the Oakridge Neighborhood Services, has been on
Read More →
Posted September 05, 2018in Civic Skinny
After six-and-a-half years of proceedings — and $987,849.80 in billings to taxpayers — George LaMarca is withdrawing as the state’s lawyer in the never-ending discrimination and defamation and retaliation lawsuit filed against former Governor Terry Branstad and five members of his administration by former Workers Compensation Commissioner Chris Godfrey. The
Read More →
