Jan 08

A Transportation Commission meeting with a notable absence

Posted on Tuesday, January 8, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The Iowa Transportation Commission is having its first meeting of the year today in Ames. The agenda is the most pedestrian possible. (Where’s the transfer of jurisdiction of those weird stubs still under state control?)

But off camera, so to speak, is the difference. William “Bill” Petroski, the Des Moines Register‘s transportation reporter (and corrections, and gambling, and more recently Iowa Senate) since before I started to read the paper, is a member of the most recent batch of employees (and all former co-workers of mine) to take buyouts.

(Because Gannett’s websites are intertwined, the links come via the Star-Press in Muncie IN, not to be confused with the Star Press Union, which is a mashup of the Belle Plaine Union and South Benton Star Press that Gannett also owns.)

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Jan 07

United to extend Ames, Boone sharing

Posted on Monday, January 7, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

The 55-mph school speed limit between Ames and Boone is going to stick around a while longer.

According to last month’s school board agenda for the United school district, which is between the two cities, the board will approve whole-grade sharing through the 2026-27 school year at its meeting this week. The district will remain K-6 and send 7-12 students to both schools.

By the way, United’s website’s posting of school board minutes is top-notch, allowing me to find and read the minutes and supporting documents easily without having to dig too deeply or trigger an automatic download of a Word file.

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Jan 04

Iowa counties among ‘most representative’

Posted on Friday, January 4, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

A study from Echelon Insights sought to find “typical counties” in the United States and two counties from Iowa rank in the top 20. The Midwest plus Pennsylvania ranked pretty high overall. The link has a map to play with.

Under the metrics in this project, Scott County is the third-most-representative county in the country, and Linn County is 20th. Then there’s Polk at 44th, one spot ahead of California’s highest rank on the list (San Luis Obispo). Tama is the 999th “most representative”, and Van Buren is the county in Iowa that least resembles the nation as a whole, ranked 2724th.

Given the way Iowa swung between the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections and then between the 2016 and 2018 congressional elections, the state remains a place for testing political messaging.

(But please, someone do a name-recognition poll between the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference and that guy from Maryland.)

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Jan 03

The slightly strange political career of Leo Elthon

Posted on Thursday, January 3, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

There are three men who served as governor of Iowa for fewer than two months. One of them pinballed between state and local government after sitting in the big chair. According to the U of I’s Biographical Dictionary of Iowa:

Leo Elthon of Fertile, in Worth County, was a state senator who won election as lieutenant governor in 1952. Governor and lieutenant governor were independent of each other at the time, and terms were only two years long, and he ran again in 1954. But before the earlier term ended, Gov. William Beardsley died in a car accident.

“Elthon served as governor of Iowa for 52 days (the only governor to succeed to the office due to the death of his predecessor), and was then reinaugurated as lieutenant governor,” the Biographical Dictionary says. Those 52 days earned Elthon a place in the governors list and a State of the State address he didn’t have to worry about fulfilling!

After Elthon served his second term as lieutenant governor, he became mayor of Fertile and then returned to the Iowa Senate.

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Jan 02

Elevator part of I-74 bridge plans

Posted on Wednesday, January 2, 2019, at 10:00 AM by Jeff


May 7, 2018: An elevator would provide a more direct connection from Bettendorf’s Riverfront Trail (seen at bottom left) to the future I-74 bridge, whose Iowa landing will be just a bit upstream from the current one.

The city of Bettendorf will pay for an eight-story elevator for access to the multi-use trail that’s incorporated into the new I-74 bridge, reports the Rock Island Dispatch-Argus. The elevator, which would be close to the river, isn’t part of the bridge work itself. The trail returns to ground level at US 67 (Grant Street), the article says.

The timeline on the bridge’s official website has an arch motif to correspond to the bridge design, and it makes it LOOK like 2019 is starting the downswing. That’s sort of true, in that the groundwork for the bridge including right-of-way and pier-setting is done, but at the same time, 2018 was just getting into the phase of seeing the bridge actually start to take shape. The next three years in Bettendorf will see great change along the riverfront. Maybe, when complete, it will be enough to entice RAGBRAI to end there.

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Dec 31

2018 goes down but not without a fight

Posted on Monday, December 31, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

It is 400 days until the 2020 Iowa presidential caucuses. Maybe. At least, as of the time of this post. Unless New Hampshire sees California as enough of a threat that we get another lesson in the disasters of early voting.

Happy new year.

And for the Iowa fans: Have fun with this tomorrow.

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Dec 28

‘The Orville’ returns

Posted on Friday, December 28, 2018, at 1:00 PM by Jeff

I don’t know how large the Venn diagram overlap is for “people who want a fun Star Trek and not grimdark” and “people who enjoy ‘Sound of Music’ references in their ‘Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off'”. It may be just me and Seth MacFarlane, for all I know. But “The Orville” is finally back next week, and I am HERE for it.

Interestingly, the critics-vs.-viewers dichotomy that exists with “The Orville” is practically the direct inverse of “Star Trek Discovery” — and possibly for the same reasons.

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Dec 28

Alamo Bowl preview

Posted on Friday, December 28, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Iowa native John Wayne portrayed Davy Crockett in the 1960 movie “The Alamo.”

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Dec 26

Iowa State’s last visit to San Antonio

Posted on Wednesday, December 26, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

Hey, any time there’s a chance to dunk on Roy Williams, I’m going to take it.

(Sigh…what could have been.)

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Dec 24

A genealogist’s Christmas wish

Posted on Monday, December 24, 2018, at 10:00 AM by Jeff

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

Dear Santa:

Don’t bring me new dishes; I don’t need a new kind of game.
Genealogists have peculiar wishes; for Christmas I just want a surname.

A new washing machine would be great, but it’s not the desire of my life.
I’ve just found an ancestor’s birth date; what I need now is the name of his wife.

My heart doesn’t yearn for a ring, that would put a real diamond to shame.
What I want is a much cheaper thing; please give me Mary’s last name.

To see my heart singing with joy, don’t bring me a red leather suitcase.
Bring me a genealogist’s toy: A surname, with dates and place.

Wyoming Co. PA Pioneers via Clark County Genealogical Society, 1984. Reprinted in the November 1985 newsletter (PDF) of the Warren County Genealogical Society. The WCGS archives have been digitized.

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