In Robins, good government or cronyism?

This is a story I’ve been thinking about for a couple weeks, but just started working on seriously yesterday. I believe CBS 2 is also looking into it. It’s not going to run in the paper until later, but I thought I’d float it to see what people think. A couple questions: Is the story [...]

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Do NOT call me a slumlord

A federal judge granted a motion by Robert Miell that prohibits witnesses from referring to him as a slumlord in his trial, which starts Monday.
The trial is in Sioux City. Gazette reporter Trish Mehaffey will cover the entire trial, and she’ll be liveblogging it on www.gazetteonline.com
Miell, by far the biggest landlord in Linn County, faces [...]

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What does a supervisor do?

To those who thought I would answer the question in clear, simple terms, I apologize.
It’s not that easy. For one thing, the supervisors themselves determine what they do, and they are the ones who know how they spend their time. (Much as I’d love to, I don’t follow them around all day.)
When Salary War I [...]

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Supervisor expenses surprisingly low

The blog post a couple weeks ago about Jim Houser’s threat to charge mileage for his drive from the Palmer Building to Westdale elicited a little bit of a response.
So I called the Auditor’s Office to get a list of paid claims the supervisors made from Dec. 1 to today. It could have been [...]

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Lundby slipping away

I echo Todd Dorman’s approval for Jennifer Jacobs’ piece in the Des Moines Register on Mary Lundby — her failing health and her remarkable career.
I was four years old when Lundby was first elected to the legislature, and I’ve never covered the legislature as a beat reporter, so I won’t pretend to know Lundby.
But the [...]

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The supervisors’ side of things

To be fair to Supervisors Linda Langston, Jim Houser and Lu Barron, there is a coherent argument for them to have done what they did on Tuesday.
It’s this: We don’t believe the job is or ever was part-time, we only made it part-time for political reasons, and now we’re clearing the decks for the new [...]

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Supervisors: Merry Christmas to us!

The Supervisors will on Tuesday decide whether to repeal a March resolution that turned them into part-time employees of Linn County, effective Jan. 1.
If they repeal it, the new Board of Supervisors will start Jan. 2 with salaries of $89,522 each.
The part-time resolution was the only way for the supervisors to reduce their own salaries [...]

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Public Radio hires C.R. reporter

Iowa Public Radio has hired a Cedar Rapids reporter.
His name is Alex Heuer, and he will be based at KCCK – 88.3 FM, at Kirkwood Community College.
He comes from Macomb, Ill., where he was an anchor and reporter for WIUM/WIUW, which covers west central Illinois, northeast Missouri and southeast Iowa.
Here’s the press release:
12/19/08 (Des Moines) [...]

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Tom Ulrich was not alone

Space was tight in this morning’s paper, so there wasn’t room to get into it, but when the Emergency Management Commission voted to hire Mike Goldberg as the new coordinator last night, Tom Ulrich wasn’t the only EMA staffer who spoke up to voice dissent.
Don Vincent, the EMA plans officer, made similar comments.
“This agency and [...]

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Office hours, meeting times and agendas

The only thing the Linn County Supervisors didn’t cover in an afternoon planning session with former city manager Jeff Schott is the color of the pens they will use while in office.
Schott, a cross between Jimmy Stewart and Chuck Grassley, led the supervisors through a detailed discussion of how they will operate in the new [...]

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