The USDA’s weekly crop report said 98 percent of the corn planting was complete as of Sunday, even though a few farmers have had to replant cornfields damaged by late April showers. Eighty-one percent of the crop had emerged, one week ahead of normal.

The condition of the corn crop was rated 60 percent good, 21 percent excellent, 16 percent fair, 2 percent poor and 1 percent very poor.

Soybean planting was 85 percent complete as of Sunday after advancing 46 percentage points statewide during the week. Twenty-six percent of the soybean acreage has emerged, according to the weekly crop report.

The USDA said farmers had 6.6 days suitable for fieldwork during the past week. Temperatures for the week averaged 6.5 degrees above normal.

A packed parking lot at Vernon Inn, 2874 Mount Vernon Road SE, in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday evening, May 15, 2012. (Stephen Mally/Freelance)

They lined up out the door this week for one final taste of the Vernon Inn.

The “greek place” at 2874 Mount Vernon Road SE will close at the end of business on Sunday. News of the impending closure brought a boost to business all week.

The Greek restaurant has been a landmark on the local restaurant scene for 36 years, and many diners believe the void will be hard to fill.

The Vernon Inn was the first taste of Greek food for many diners, and many became hooked on dishes like roast lamb, spanakopita, tzatziki, dolmathes and avgolemono soup.

The appeal was much more than the cuisine, however. The soothing dimly-lit atmosphere made it perfect for conversation, and the serving staff was among the most experienced in Cedar Rapids.

Retired school teachers, Larry and Judy Blum of Cedar Rapids, have been dining at the Vernon Inn for more than 30 years. After putting in their order Wednesday, they text messaged their children who’ve moved away to California and Connecticut with news of their last supper at Vernon Inn.

“This was probably the first ethnic food we tasted with our kids except pizza,” Judy Blum said. “It was fun to introduce our kids to it.”

“We love that it’s local, that it’s real,” said Sandi Herder, dining with her husband John for one last time at the Vernon Inn. “We love just about everything on the menu.”

A signature feature of the Vernon Inn dining experience was the sight and smell of a pan-seared cheese dish called saganaki being doused with brandy and ignited table-side to shouts of, “opa!”

“My son’s favorite word is ‘opa’ because of the Vernon Inn,” said Austin Towell, a Rockwell Collins engineer from Cedar Rapids who was waiting to be seated Wednesday night.

Hearing the word, three-year-old Marcus Towell threw his hands in the air and happily cried out, “opa!”

The Vernon Inn began on Feb. 6, 1976 in a small leased pub space across Mount Vernon Road from the current location by brothers Basil and Stavros Hadjis, using family recipes.

Their peppery father, Stavros, was a Greek immigrant who had once cooked in the Greek navy. Both Stavros and his wife Bessie lent a hand in the kitchen.

For Basil Hadjis, who took over full ownership of the restaurant and expanded it to include a pizza concept, it became a career. His marriage to Lynn Hadjis was only two years old when the restaurant opened. Their three children all worked in the restaurant, and daughter Katie stayed until the end.

On Wednesday, Basil Hadjis received thanks and farewells from dozens of customers as the family and employees scurried to serve the full house.

“It’s been bittersweet, but it’s a nice way to finish out,” Basil said. After pouring his energies into the restaurant for 36 years, he was savoring a few months rest before beginning work on a cook book and other ventures.

On Monday, “It will probably feel like school’s out for the summer,” Basil said.

The bitter part of the closing was that the exit did not turn out as planned financially. The couple had planned to sell the restaurant property to Ankeny-based convenience store chain Kum & Go. After selling, they planned to open a smaller take-out version of the restaurant on a property they own a few blocks away.

The sale would have made the family whole, Basil said, on years of building the business and struggling through a prolonged Mount Vernon Road widening project that cut into the trade for several years. Business had also been affected by the economy and a dining trend toward less costly restaurants in the “fast casual” segment.

After objections from some 13 neighbors and a petition opposing the change, the Cedar Rapids City Council in January declined to vote on a rezoning petition.

The request received less consideration than Basil had hoped, regardless of the outcome. He said it was difficult to communicate with the city about the project, and some council members seemed uninterested in hearing Kum & Go’s plans to mitigate the neighborhood impact because they had already made their judgments about the project.

The couple are planning a move to the Chicago area to be near a grandchild. They have listed the restaurant for sale, and are in talks with a potential operator to use the Sweet Basil’s Pizza Pie Concept they offered at the Vernon Inn in a building they own at 2874 Mount Vernon Road SE.

To Basil Hadjis, a good ending is an opportunity for a fresh start, with his career and with a wife who was served a supporting role in his family and the restaurant for so long.

“Lynn has been unbelievable,” Hadjis said. “I need to give her something back.”

The familiar faces of loyal customers and employees will also be missed. Three generations of some families had become regulars.

“It’s hard to imagine where the time went,” Basil said.

The state unemployment rate edged down another 0.1 percentage points to 5.1 percent from March’s 5.2 percent, continuing a series of four consecutive declines of 0.1 percentage point.

The number of unemployed Iowans declined by 1,600 from March levels, to 85,200 and is now 13,300 lower than in April 2011.

The number of working Iowans rose 2,500 from March levels, to 1,578,200.

The construction sector added 2,700 jobs in April, reaching a total of 69,200, its highest level since December 2008.

Professional and business services added 1,500 jobs, continuing its rebound, and government added 1,100 jobs.

Manufacturing, which has been a constant in the recovery, added another 1,000 jobs in durable goods factories. It has led all sectors in growth over the past year, gaining 12,500 jobs.

Iowa Workforce Development Director Teresa Wahlert said the results are evidence of further progress in the state’s recovery in her monthly prepared remarks.

“Job growth in the state’s construction industry has been particularly strong in 2012, signaling a turnaround in an industry that was adversely affected by the housing downturn,” Wahlert added.

The health insurance provider has leased 13,000 square feet of space in the new building under construction at Third Avenue and Sixth Street SE by Steve Emerson. It plans to move from the GreatAmerica building into the new quarters during the fourth quarter, Wellmark spokeswoman Courtney Greene said.

It becomes the second tenant announced for the 45,000-square-foot, three-level building, which is located just outside the area affected by the record June 2008 Cedar River flood crest. CliftonLarsonAllen LLP will lease the third floor to house about 40 employees.

About 50 Wellmark employees work in customer service, health care provider relations and sales in the Cedar Rapids office.

The new office building is outside the downtown area that flooded during the record June 2008 flood crest, but that is not one of the main reasons for the move, according to Wellmark Vice President of Property Management Matt Brown.

Brown said business continuity planning is always a consideration, but Wellmark decided to move primarily due to space design and parking needs. The new location will allow Wellmark’s operations to all be housed on the same floor of a building, and will have better parking availability, Brown said.

“We’re excited to stay downtown where the hospitals are and the medical mall is going to be,” Brown said.

Brown praised the city’s rebound from the June 2008 Cedar River flood. Wellmark was not on a ground floor space directly impacted by flood damage, although like other upper floor tenants was affected by disruption to utilities and building services.

Headquartered in Des Moines, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is Iowa’s largest health insurance provider.

Iowa State University emeritus economics professor Ken Stone and Georgeanne Artz, a visiting assistant professor of economics in ISU’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, are authors a new study on Iowa communities 15 years before and after Walmart. (Bob Elbert/ISU News Service)

Iowa State University economist Ken Stone made headlines in 1988 when he released the first academic study on Walmart’s economic impact on the economies of small communities.

Twenty-five years later, the professor emeritus, who retired in 2007, has co-authored a new ISU study that could make another splash, but for different reasons.

Walmart opened 45 stores in Iowa between 1983 and 1994, then took a five-year break on opening new Iowa stores. Beginning in 1999, another wave of store openings began that brought Walmart to 59 stores in 55 different communities.

Stone’s 1988 study found Walmart’s arrival hurt retailers competing head-on with Walmart in the same merchandise categories, but had a positive effect on retailers that sold different kinds of merchandise.

Retail sales tended to fall in surrounding non-Walmart towns, and the initial sales jump towns received from a Walmart opening tended to taper off as competing retailers closed or cut back.

Now, ISU’s research find that Walmart has been an overall retail boon for small Iowa towns with Walmart stores and the drain on surrounding towns has stabilized.

Real per capita sales in Walmart towns increased an average of 11 percent after the stores opened and fell to about 5 percent after 15 years.

Sales in a control group of towns without Walmart stores declined by an average of 25 percent, but had stabilized by the end of the 15-year post-opening study period.

Early Walmart store openings in the late 1980s focused on smaller communities, the report said. They tended to increase general merchandise sales in the community by about $9.8 million, the report said, possibly because Walmarts were relatively new and attracted many customers from outside the host town.

In the 1990s, the size of new Walmarts increased to about 90,000 square feet and they could conservatively generate $22.5 million in annual sales. Host communities gained a more modest $7.8 million in net retail sales.

Stone said his biggest surprise from the research was the stabilization of retail sales in non-Walmart communities.

The reasons weren’t probed in the study. Stone’s best guess is that control group of communities stabilized because they have discount and specialty retailers such as Hy-Vee, Fareway, Family Dollar and ALCO. Those retailers have adjusted their strategies to cope with Walmart.

Stone’s 1988 study raised the ire of top Walmart officials including founder Sam Walton, Stone said, and launched him in a new direction of speaking and consulting on how best to cope with Walmart in Iowa communities.

One criticism of the original study was that it ignored Walmart’s store site selection criteria. If Walmart chose high-growth areas for its stores, they said the study and others like it would underestimate the negative effects of a Walmart on the retail economy, and overestimate the positive effects.

The new study addressed the concern by reaching back 15 years before the Walmart stores opened. That historical analysis of retail sales in the community over that period made it clear that most of the small communities were already in an extended trend of retail decline before the Walmart stores opened.

Coping with Walmart is a daily fact of life for stores like J.T. Hadherway Co. in Monticello. The family-owned department store has made adjustments like ending apparel sales because a Walmart less than ten miles west in Anamosa made apparel lines unprofitable, and focusing more on things like selling high-quality fabrics not available at Walmart to quilters.

“We felt a ripple when the Walmart came, but we never tried to compete with Walmart,” said founder Julie Tuetken, who now works for her son Chris part-time at the store.

Tuetken said that Walmart in earlier years would send employees into J.T. Hadherway to benchmark her prices so that Walmart could undercut them. She said J.T. Hadherway’s strategy has been to offer products that are in local demand that customers can’t find at Walmart, and to offer service that leaves customers smiling.

Stone said the fate of small community retailers that were competing directly against Walmart is the sad part of the situation, but it’s clear that having a Walmart helps communities by improving sales tax collections.

Communities might be inclined from the study findings to offer incentives to attract Walmart stores. Economists generally agree that incentives should only be used when they do not harm the competitive position of other local firms, the study said, but municipal leaders might find it to the town’s overall benefit.

The ISU study analyzed over 20 Iowa communities with populations between 3,000 and 20,000, in which Walmart stores opened no later than 1994, and an equivalent number of non Walmart communities.

If small towns with Walmart stores were overall gainers and small towns without Walmarts have stabilized, it might seem that everyone’s coming out OK in the Walmart game.

That’s not true, Stone said, because retailing has swooned in small Iowa towns with populations of 2,500 or less. Those towns are not only too small to attract a Walmart but other discount or specialty retail chains, Stone said. Their retail sales have declined by about 33 percent over the 15-year period.

Stone hadn’t planned to work on any more Walmart studies, but changed his mind after the Economic Development Quarterly asked him to write the lead study for an edition devoted exclusively to Walmart studies. He said he still takes a strong personal interest in the mega-retailer.

The Alliant Energy building, downtown Cedar Rapids on Friday, September 21, 2001.

Alliant Energy will soon propose a rate increase averaging 4-6 percent for its natural gas customers in Iowa.

The company’s Interstate Power & Light utility plans to file the rate increase request on May 25 with the Iowa Utilities Board. The increase would apply only to the service costs on the customer’s natural gas bill, which average 30-40 percent of the total bill, company spokesman Justin Foss said.

IP&L is not the dominant natural gas supplier in the Corridor. Its local markets include Mount Vernon, Lisbon, Palo and Vinton.

Foss said natural gas bills have dropped about 19 percent since 2005 at IP&L, due mainly to lower wholesale natural gas prices.

IP&L’s last natural gas rate increase was seven years ago.

Specific factors driving the company to seek a rate increase will be disclosed at the time of the filing, Foss said. The increase is expected to vary between different customer classes.

The realty site said placed Iowa City No. 21 on its list of cities ranked on the strength of recovery in their real estate markets.

Listing prices are up 6.81% on a year-over-year quarterly basis, a REALTOR.com article said, and inventories dropped -26.24 percent. The Iowa City market’s foreclosure rate of only one in every 1,447 units is much lower than the national average of 1 in every 662 units, the article said, also noting the community’s low 4.2 percent jobless rate.

REALTOR.com is the official web site of the National Association of Realtors. The group’s Top Turnaround Markets list was topped by Florida markets, but the group noted a strong concentration of strong turnaround markets in the Midwest and West, including Iowa City, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Grand Rapids, Mich.

Justin Powrie, a services manager for the chain, said the closing was a corporate decision based on the economy. He said the company also was a restaurant at 3805 E. 53rd St. in Davenport.

Maryville, Tenn.-based Ruby Tuesday closed its other Cedar Rapids location at 217 Collins Rd. NE in September 2011, leaving only the Edgewood Road SW restaurant. The restaurant, which is located across Edgewood Road SW from Westdale Mall, opened in the fall of 2006.

Sandy Beall, Ruby Tuesday founder, chairman and CEO,  said recently that the company planned to close 25 to 27 underperforming restaurants before the end of this month. Sales fell 5 percent in the last fiscal quarter on a year-over-year basis at Ruby Tuesday’s company-owned restaurants.

Beall said the chain, which will continue to operate locations in Mason City and Urbandale, has had difficulty keeping up with competitors who rely heavily on advertising and big promotions to draw in customers.

The suddenness of the Cedar Rapids closing came as a surprise to some employees, but followed a pattern that Ruby Tuesday has followed at other locations that have closed. Powrie did not know why there was not more advance notice of the closing.

Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A may build a new restaurant at the former site of Ruby Tuesday at 217 Collins Rd. NE, on the perimeter of  Lindale Mall.

The restaurant at 217 Collins Road NE would have seating for 140 indoor and 28 outside, in addition to a drive-through, according to a preliminary site plan filed with the city of Cedar Rapids. It shows a new 4,866-square-foot building and 95-car lot.

Chick-fil-A, a fast-food chain known for its chicken nuggets and whimsical advertising campaign (“Eat mor chikin”), has long operated a store in Westdale Mall.

Iowa City Area Development said the land in Iowa City’s Wind Energy Supply Chain Campus is the third to be designated under the Certified Shovel Ready Iowa program. A certification letter was presented to Iowa City Mayor Matt Hayek by Jonathan Gemmen of Austin Consulting, the third-party certification party.

Iowa City Area Development Group has been working with Austin Consulting for several years to obtain the certification, ICAD Group Interim President Mark Nolte said.

“Since announcing its application, we have seen more interest in the park from manufacturing companies in wind energy and other industries. We look forward to sharing this official announcement with these potential projects.”

“Shovel Ready Iowa” was created by ICAD Group as an independent, third-party certification program designed to reduce risk for local communities and property owners as well as companies researching Iowa’s Creative Corridor for business location or expansion. The goal of the program is to create an inventory of available sites that are fully-served and ready for immediate development.

The program is available in Linn, Johnson, Jones, Benton, Iowa, Cedar and Washington counties. Property can be certified in one of five categories.

Nolte said the ICAD Group and Austin Consulting are continuign to work with developers, property owners, cities and utility partners to identify new properties for certification.

“Austin Consulting is currently reviewing potential applications for property in Marion, Cedar Rapids, Coralville and North Liberty.”

The Tipton Business Park and three sites at the University of Iowa Research Park were the first to receive “shovel-ready” status.

Iowa City’s Wind Industry Supply Chain Campus is certified in the manufacturing category. Factors considered in the certificaton process included highway, air service and rail service access, along with workforce training availability.

The Ruby Tuesday restaurant at 2215 Edgewood Rd. SW closed abruptly on Tuesday, leaving 30 to 35 employees without a job. (image via Cedar Rapids GIS)

The national restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday abruptly closed its restaurant at 2215 Edgewood Road SW on Tuesday, laying off about 30-35 employees.

Justin Powrie, a services manager for the chain, said the closing was a corporate decision based on the economy. He said the company was simultaneously closing a restaurant in Davenport.

Read more at Business380.com

The company’s Interstate Power & Light utility plans to file the rate increase request on May 25 with the Iowa Utilities Board.

Read more at Business380.com

In this Feb. 17, 2009 file photo, shoppers leave a Wal-Mart in Danvers, Mass. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole, File)

Iowa State University economist Ken Stone made headlines in 1988 when he released the first academic study on Wal-Mart’s economic impact on the economies of small communities.

Twenty-five years later, the professor emeritus, who retired in 2007, has co-authored a new ISU study that could make another splash, but for different reasons.

Read more at Business380.com

CORALVILLE — The driver doesn’t have to be in a semi-trailer truck to feel the pull of the tight turn on the Interstate 380/80 interchange in Johnson County, but it’s the truck drivers who are most likely to face the danger.

The interchange is identified in a new American Transportation Research Institute report as the worst heavy truck rollover “hot spot” in Iowa. Thirty heavy trucks rolled over at the interchange during a study from 2001 through 2009, more than any other spot in the state. Rollover accidents averaged 346 annually in Iowa over the nine-year study.

A solution is in sight for the interchange, but it’s a long way off.

The Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization of Johnson County will vote May 23 on a new long-range transportation plan that includes a new interchange that addresses design flaws that are the underlying issue contributing to the rollovers.

Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said the turning radius “seems to get tighter the higher you go into the curves, and the truck’s load will shift or the rear end of the truck will slip out.”

“It’s one of the most troublesome cloverleafs in the United States in my opinion,” Pulkrabek said.

In addition to its tight turning radius, the interchange has only one “merge/diverge” lane for I-80 traffic entering and exiting to I-380 that often causes accidents of a less serious nature, according to transportation planner and Executive Director John Yapp of the planning agency.

Having the project in the agency’s plan will enable the Federal Highway Administration to conduct a interchange justification report that will determine if the reconstruction is warranted.

There is a lot to justify in this case, because the price tag for the new interchange is more than $300 million, and the federal government will have to shoulder most of the load.

The planning organization doesn’t see the money shaking out any time soon. The anticipated time frame for the project is 10 to 15 years, Yapp said.

“It’s by far the most expensive project in the plan,” Yapp said.

Cathy Cutler, regional planner for the Iowa Department of Transportation, said the highway administration has already approved an environmental assessment for the interchange replacement, and a preliminary design for a new interchange is completed.

The new design would alleviate the merge/diverge problem and create more-relaxed turning radiuses that would ease rollovers. Also, bridges would separate all the on- and off-ramp pavement to eliminate conflicts caused by merging traffic.

The huge expense of the project is due mainly to the need for the four bridges, Cutler said, although the project would also require the purchase of more land and the construction of more drainage structures.

The I-380/80 interchange dates back to the construction of I-380 as a four-lane interstate north of I-80 around 1970, and the reconstruction of Highway 218 to a four-lane divided freeway south of I-80 in 1982.

The project is not on the Iowa Department of Transportation’s draft 2013-2017 Transportation Improvement Program that was posted for public review Tuesday because the interchange justification report has not been completed.

In the meantime, the American Transportation Research Institute is using data from the rollover study to develop a satellite-based mobile communications network to alert drivers about the hot spots, said Rebecca Brewster, president of the non-profit research organization.

Traffic travelling eastbound merges onto Interstate 80 from Interstate 380 on Wednesday, July 9, 2003, near Coralville. (The Gazette)

Rockwell Collins CEO Clay Jones warned of potential job cuts due to federal budget and legislative inaction Wednesday during the first of Gov. Terry Branstad’s statewide stops to show gratitude for existing employers.

A Rockwell Collins stop Wednesday morning kicked off the Branstad administration’s “Operation Thank You” campaign to foster relations with long-term growth companies in Iowa. Such companies are often overlooked in a desire to call attention to success in luring new companies, Branstad said, but create the vast majority of new jobs in the state.

The Cedar Rapids-based company designs and manufactures aerospace electronics and provides related services such as flight training and flight planning and support services. It employs 6,500 in the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City area and 10,000 statewide, including about 4,000 engineers in the Cedar Rapids area.

Rockwell Collins’ concerns have much less to do with the state than the federal government these days, however. Jones voiced concern about the “devastating $500 billion threat of sequestration” cuts in military spending slated to begin Jan. 1, 2013 due to Congress’ inability to agree on targeted budget cuts.

THe sequestration cuts will impact jobs “in our industry, in our state and in our community,” said Jones, who is also Rockwell Collins’ president and board chairman.

Rockwell Collins spends much of its $1 billion in annual research and development spending in Iowa because of its R & D tax policy and “stable and consistent” corporate income tax policy, Jones said.

The federal government has been less supportive, Jones said. Congress has made 14 temporary extensions of a federal corporate R & D tax credit and allowed it to expire twice in the last three years, he complained.

“As a result we don’t have the certainty and consistency we need to do business and that has inhibited us from adding more jobs in Iowa,” Jones said.

Rockwell Collins has been one of Iowa’s best technology-based business success stories with a long history of growth. That growth has been interrupted recently by a series of layoff announcement resulting mainly from defense program cutbacks. Only a fraction of the layoffs have been in Cedar Rapids, but the worst could be yet to come.

Rockwell Collins was cited by Branstad and Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham as a “traded cluster company” valued highly in the state’s economic development effort because it innovates new products and ships them globally.

Rockwell Collins has been in the cross hairs of criticism of the state’s Research Activities Credit. Reports from the Iowa Fiscal Partnership have said the credit was originally designed to help early stage and startup companies, but now are used mainly by large established corporations with little reporting required to show that they produce jobs or other benefits for the state.

The group’s latest report said Rockwell Collins was the largest recipient of the credit, allowed $14.3 million in refundable tax creditsin 2011.

Companies like Rockwell Collins also benefits from state tax laws that exempt Iowa manufacturers from paying state sales tax on product that is shipped for sale to customers out of state.

Branstad said a new law his administration is supporting will extend the benefits to suppliers of eliminating state sales tax on goods being manufactured for products to be sold out of state.

The company has a supplier base of about 800 companies in Iowa, Jones said.

Branstad’s visit to Rockwell Collins included a brief factory tour and a look at the company’s latest touchscreen cockpit avionics, flight information solutions, and flight simulators.

More than 100 Rockwell Collins employees were on hand to hear Branstad, Durham and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds. They were joined by leaders of the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance and the city.

A draft plan presented Tuesday provides about $185 million for completion of the first 3.8-mile extension of Highway 100 from Edgewood to Covington roads and grading of the second 3.7-mile leg from Covington Road to Highway 30 over the next five years.

Another $50 million is in the plan to bring the Mount Vernon bypass through the grading stage. The plan presented to the Iowa Transportation Commission begins July 1 and runs through June 30, 2017.

Both projects have been sought by local communities for decades. While the Highway 100 project could still be blocked by lawsuits by the Sierra Club and local residents, the odds are now in favor of the projects that have been touted for their safety and economic development benefits.

Commission member Amy Reasner of Cedar Rapids, last year’s commission chairwoman, said all indications are that the draft will be adopted June 12 when the commission is set to vote on the plan.

Sierra Club attorney Wallace Taylor of Cedar Rapids said commission approval of the Highway 100 funding could provide the conditions necessary to obtain a court injunction blocking the project. The Sierra Club would not object to funding the leg of the project from Covington Road to Highway 30, Taylor said, because it would not interfere with the environmentally sensitive Rock Island Preserve area.

Taylor said the lawsuit to block the project was initially thrown out by a District Court Judge Mitchell Turner on grounds that it was not ripe for consideration because the project still might not be built. He said funding approval could help overcome that court objection.

Taylor said he won’t be the only one saddened by the decision.

“Why aren’t they spending all the money on the crumbling roads and bridges they have instead of building new projects?” Taylor said.

An unusual convergence of factors have allowed the commission to put the Linn County projects and many other projects around the state back in the plan, Reasner said.

The Iowa Department of Transportation will enter fiscal 2013 on July 1 with a surplus of about $225 million. The surplus resulted from conservative budgeting for the current fiscal year because of grim federal funding predictions that did not come true, favorable bid-lettings, and higher than projected receipts, Reasner said.

“We don’t want to continue sitting on a surplus while there are meritorious projects out there waiting to be funded,” Reasner said.

Reaction from community leaders was ecstatic.

“From a transportation development standpoint, it’s been one of our biggest issues for a long time,” Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett said. “It will help with the natural growth of Cedar Rapids over the next 50 years.”

The project had landed in the Transportation Commission’s five-year plan a decade ago, only to fall out of the plan as environmentalists and development interests along the proposed highway alignment fought the project.

“It’s been a long haul to get us to this point,” Corbett said.

The Mount Vernon-Lisbon Bypass was taken out of the plan about one decade ago when the commission refocused its highway building priorities on economic development corridors. The current highway passes close by the public schools campuses of Mount Vernon and Lisbon, creating safety concerns.

Gazette reporter Rick Smith contributed to this report.

These two signs were spotted along Highway 100 near the Marion and Cedar Rapids city limits on July 19, 2010. The merge left sign is next to the left lane closed sign. (Christoph Trappe/SourceMedia Group News)

CEDAR RAPIDS METRO AREA

(Linn, Benton, Jones counties)

Shrunk

• Construction: Minus 2,400 jobs to 5,900, down 29 percent
• Government: Minus 400 jobs, to 16,200, down 2.4 percent.
• Leisure/hospitality: Minus 1,900 jobs to 9,200. down 17 percent
• Manufacturing: Minus 2,000 to 20,400, down 8.9 percent
• Retail: Minus 1,200 jobs to 15,400, down 7.2 percent

Grew

• Education,/health: Plus 600 jobs to 19,100, up 3.2 percent.

Steady

• Professional/business services: Minus 100 jobs to 12,800, down 0.8 percent

IOWA CITY METRO AREA

(Johnson, Washington counties)

Shrunk

•  Goods producing: Minus 1,100 jobs to 9,200, down 10.7 percent.
•  Leisure/hospitality: Minus 800 jobs to 8,300, down 8.7 percent.

Steady

•  Government: Minus 200 jobs to 33,900, down 0.5 percent.
• Professional/ business: services: Plus 400 jobs to 5,700, up 0.8 percent

IOWA

Shrunk

•  Construction: Minus 7,000 jobs to 66,700, down 9.5 percent.
•  Government: Minus 3,700 jobs to 247,000, down 1.5 percent
•  Leisure/ hospitality: Minus 7,500 jobs to 130,600, down 5.6 percent
•  Manufacturing: Minus 12,700 jobs to 217,500, down 5.5 percent
•  Retail: Minus 7,600 jobs to 171,100, down 4.3 percent

Grew

•  Education/health: Plus 12,200 jobs to 217,300, up 5.9 percent.

Steady

• Professional/ business services: Minus 600 jobs to 121,700, down 0.5 percent

ANALYSIS

“We’re recovering, but we’re doing it slowly. It’s two more jobs gained, but we lose one. We’re recovering, but it’s not as fast as you’d like to.”

— David Osterberg, director, Iowa policy Project, Iowa City:

“We’re really bucking the national trend in some of these sectors like finance and transportation, and that bodes well for our recovery.”

— Iowa State University Professor of Labor Economics Peter Orazem:

Source: Iowa Workforce Development

Note: Categories for Cedar Rapids and Iowa City metropolitan statistical areas differ because sample sizes differ; numbers are not seasonally adjusted

Conterfeit goods like these confiscated in Minneapolis were seized at Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids in February. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Hard to resist.

Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Ed Hardy and Ruimacci hand bags were some of the designer labels at a liquidation sale in a rented space at Westdale Mall in February, and the prices were right.

Other things were not so right — a missed stitch here, a questionable grade of leather there.

When somebody showed up to grab the bags on Feb. 18, they were in uniform.

It was the United States Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office, tipped off that the goods were counterfeit.

The agency ended up seizing $442,912 worth of wallets and purses from one of the liquidation sale vendors, who is still under investigation. All the bags will likely be destroyed, according to federal officials.

The bust was one of many carried out each month by the Department of Homeland Security in the Midwest, and doesn’t even qualify as one of the larger seizures.

Knockoff goods are a booming business in the United States, fueled not just by unscrupulous sellers but consumers willing to suppress their doubts about the authenticity of goods they buy to get a good deal. Craigslist and eBay are two of the online hot spots for counterfeit goods, according to the Better Business Bureau.

“The hard sell for us on this type of thing is that the average person thinks, ‘If I can get a counterfeit handbag for $20, why end up paying $500?’ ” said Mike Feinberg, special agent in charge of investigations at Homeland Security’s Minneapolis regional office.

Mike Feinberg

Feinberg’s response is that buying or selling counterfeit goods undermines the economy and jobs by cheating legitimate companies out of the profits they received through innovation and risk-taking. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement seized $78.3 million worth of merchandise in the last fiscal year, merchandise that if legitimate would have worth $1.1 billion.

China is the number one source of counterfeit goods, Feinberg said, accounting for more than 65 percent of goods seized.

So many counterfeits are coming into the United States that the agency knows it can’t get them all.

“Our number one goal is to stop the sale of items that could pose a health and safety risk, such as counterfeit pharmaceuticals and electronics,” Feinberg said. The agency has repeatedly seized counterfeit medicines for treatment of cancer, heart disease and male erectile dysfunction.

Counterfeit drugs not only fail to provide the medical benefits of the authentic drugs, but often contain dangerous ingredients like formaldehyde that jeopardize health, Feinberg said.

Manufacturing practices for counterfeit goods are so dubious that even wearing counterfeit goods has caused sickness, according to Shawn Neudauer, public information officer for the Immigration and Customs agency in Minneapolis. The agency confiscated a large load of counterfeit Ugg boots after dangerous chemicals in the leather got into the bloodstreams of at least one wearer who became ill.

The sale of counterfeit goods in Iowa tends to rely on transient merchants.

In large cities like Chicago or Minneapolis, Feinberg said it’s not unusual for a store that sells counterfeit goods to lease a storefront or mall space for several months.

Shawn Neudauer

In Iowa, the knockoffs tend to show up at flea markets or special sales that last a week or less in rented halls or retail spaces.

The short window of time available to respond to the counterfeit report was the unusual thing about the seizure at Westdale Mall because the sale only lasted two days, Neudauer said. Agents can’t just show up and seize the items. They must investigate their authenticity and receive court warrants to seize the property.

Westdale Mall management learned of the handbag seizure well after the fact and expressed surprise.

Westdale Mall General Manager Kerry Sanders said the mall strives to maintain a quality atmosphere both for shoppers and retailers. He said the business selling the pursues had received positive references.

“The vendor in question won’t be invited back to the property,” he said, adding that the mall is cooperating fully in the investigation of the vendor.

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office encourages customers who identify their purchases as counterfeit goods to request that the retailer refund their money. If the goods were purchased at a transient sale like the liquidation sale at Westdale Mall, they are subject to Iowa’s door-to-door sales law. That law allows consumers who bought goods to receive a refund during a three-day reconsideration period.

Catching the retailers that sell counterfeit goods is not as important to the Immigration and Customs agency than catching the source of the goods. That’s because the importer/wholesaler can always find other outlets for knockoff goods if one or two are shut down.

“We don’t have the resources to follow these guys from show to show,” Feinberg said. “What we’d like to do in most cases is to approach them and seek their cooperation to get contacts at the next level up. It’s just like working a drug deal. You try to build it (the case) back up to the next level.”

If the Immigration and Customs agents get lucky, they can intercept the shipping packages or shipping documents from the counterfeit goods in order to find out where they originated, Feinberg said.

Neudauer said small quantities of seized goods are usually destroyed in a manner sufficient to satisfy the holder of intellectual property rights when a relatively small quantity of goods is involved. In some cases, the intellectual property issues can be resolved as simply as removing a brand label from the product, but in other cases they are physically destroyed beyond recognition.

When large quantities of apparel are involved, Neubauer said the agency has sometimes worked with the intellectual property holder to arrange donations of the property. In some cases, he said, the fraudulent labeling is altered or removed and the items donated to relief groups and orphanages in underdeveloped countries.

How to avoid fake products

Avoiding the purchase of counterfeit goods is mainly a matter of taking precautions:

•  Know what the goods you are buying are supposed to look like and cost by studying images online or viewing them in person, Details such as zippers, screws, clasps and sticking are usually specific for each brand.
• Red flags should go up if labels or tags are missing, or if the pricing is significantly lower than the lowest prices available from reputable retailers’ prices.
•  Online retailers selling counterfeit goods often go overboard in their product description in their use of words such as “authentic” or “genuine” that retailers selling authentic merchandise would likely see no need to use.

Sources: Iowa Attorney’s General Office, Better Business Bureau

Who to contact

Consumers who believe they have received counterfeit merchandise who don’t get satisfaction from the retailer may take their complaint to several websites:

•  Better Business Bureau: http://smgs.us/mic
• Iowa Attorney General Consumer Protection Division: http://smgs.us/mi9
•  National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center: http://smgs.us/mia

CORALVILLE — The city of Coralville’s contingency plan to bring Von Maur to its Iowa River Landing development if it loses a lawsuit would be to substitute a virtually no-cost lease for a virtually no-cost sale of the site and other incentives.

The plan is included in a resolution approved by the City Council this week to induce the Von Maur department store chain to proceed with its store in Coralville despite the lawsuit.

An earlier agreement allowed the Davenport-based department store chain to pull out of the development in the event of a lawsuit challenging its legality.

The resolution, passed on a 3-1 vote with one member absent on Tuesday, says the city believes that its transaction with Von Maur is legal and will be upheld in court.

The original agreement called for the city provide a $1.5 million grant to its private development partner, OliverMcMillan, to buy a 7.5 acre store site in Iowa River Landing for Von Maur.

The agreement allows OliverMcMillan to sell the land to Von Maur for $10 and for Von Maur to receive $9.47 million for construction of the store itself. The company would spend about $4 million of its own funds on the store’s interior and furnishings.

The resolution approved Tuesday says the two sides will continue to work on preserving the original agreement if the city loses the lawsuit filed by 18 individuals and companies.

“We are trying to get the deal back as close as it was to when we wrote it the first time,” said Kevin Olson, Coralville city attorney.

In the city’s worst-case scenario, the court would strike down both its transfer of the land to Von Maur through OliverMcMillan and its payment of $9.47 million for the construction of the store.

In that event, Olson said the resolution provides for the city to buy back the store from Von Maur for an amount to be determined and to lease it to Von Maur for $10 a year for 50 years.

Olson said the city, OliverMcMillan and Von Maur will not need to use the modified agreements if the city and OliverMcMillan prevail in the lawsuit.

“I don’t expect the lawsuit to go away any time soon,” Olson said, noting that any court decision could be appealed by either party. He said the Von Maur store will likely be built and operating when the case is settled.

Council members Mitch Gross, Tom Gill and Bill Hoeft voted in favor, while Jill Dodds voted against at Tuesday’s council meeting.

In response to an emailed inquiry, Dodds said she understands the importance of having a strong anchor store in Iowa River Landing, but has philosophical concerns about the city owning a retail department store.

The lawsuit was filed in early March attempting to halt the transfer of the site for the store to OliverMcMillan and by OliverMcMillan to Von Maur for a token fee.

Among the lawsuit’s claims are that the deal violates Iowa laws restricting the use of economic development grants to encourage businesses to move from one Iowa community to another, and that it constitutes an unlawful gift of city property to a business.

The city has counter-sued the 18 plaintiffs, accusing them of illegally interfering in a contract with malicious intent.

Work has begun to connect a new trail under construction on the railroad trestle (above) with Boyson Trail below. Photographed on Friday, April 20, 2012, in Marion. (Liz Martin/The Gazette-KCRG)

A new recreational trail slated to open this summer is expected to become a favorite for bike commuters between Marion and Cedar Rapids.

The Lindale Trail will provide the first recreational trail linkage between the two cities, traveling east and west for nearly a mile from C Avenue NE in Cedar Rapids to the Boyson Trail in Marion along a former Canadian National Railway segment.

The Linn County Trails Association will donate 2,000 feet of former rail bed to the city of Cedar Rapids this week for the Cedar Rapids segment of the trail after buying it from the railroad.

Marion has already acquired its portion of the rail bed, and is currently working on a tie-in to the north-south Boyson Trail at its end.

Such recreational trail projects often take years, as exemplified by another east-west trail project, the Ce-Mar Trail. That trail is proposed to link Marion and Cedar Rapids along a more southerly route.

“This trail has been a pretty fast turnaround compared to most,” said Linn County Trails Association President John Wauer. Such trails tend to get much higher usage than isolated trail remnants because they provide valuable linkages, Wauer said.

The Lindale Trail got a big break when the Linn County Trails Association learned from the city of Marion that the Cedar Rapids portion of the former Canadian National Railway easement could be acquired, and jumped at the opportunity, Wauer said.

The property was available at reasonable cost because it does not have good accessibility from neighboring streets, Wauer said. Many trail projects get bogged down in land acquisition talks with multiple owners because Iowa law does not allow cities to have eminent domain power for trails. But the railroad easement was still intact, allowing negotiations with only one party.

“The long-term connection opportunities for Cedar Rapids and Marion are just exceptional,” said Steve Hershner, development chair for the trails association. “We couldn’t pass it up.”

The association spent $25,000 primarily from supporter contributions to buy the Canadian National property. It held a meeting with the trail’s neighbors to share its plans and listen to concerns.

The association also conducted a trail cleanup on March 31, picking up car parts, a 5,000-gallon water storage tank and beverage cans more than a quarter-century old.

“It was like Alice’s Restaurant,” Hershner said, referring to a Vietnam War-era song in which the discovery that a municipal landfill is closed on Thanksgiving leads to illegal dumping and eventually, deferral from the draft.

About half of the Marion portion of the trail is graveled and usable. A contractor has begun work on grading and graveling the other half. Cedar Rapids plans to pave its portion of the trail in time to have it usable this summer, said Ron Griffith, bicycle coordinator and a project engineer II for the city of Cedar Rapids.

The Linn County Trails Association also plans to help the city of Cedar Rapids with funding for paving the trail, Wauer said.

Marion Planning and Development Director Tom Treharne and Griffith said a significant demand for the trail has arisen from bicycle commuters who work at Rockwell Collins, the area’s largest private employer.

“That’s the big push to get this done — that there’s a demand out there,” Griffith said. He said some Rockwell Collins commuters have even used the trail in pre-developed condition, exiting at the Cedar Rapids end through business parking lots that back up to it.

Rockwell Collins was recently recognized by the League of American Bicyclists as a bicycle-friendly business. Hershner said the trails association has held discussions with the company to identify other cooperation opportunities.

The connection with the Boyson Trail on the Marion end will greatly expand opportunities to use the trail. Treharne said the north-south Boyson Trail connects a series of parks and neighborhoods from south Marion to northeast Cedar Rapids.

Access to the trail from the Cedar Rapids end will be through an existing easement through the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 1362 Hall at 5720 C Ave. NE. Entry to the trail from C Avenue will be in front of the Walgreens store at 5750 C Ave. NE, or from Blairs Ferry Road east of the Road Ranger convenience store.

The metro trail network eventually will be extended to the Grant Wood Trail, an east-west trail from Linn County into Jones County from Marion, and to the Cedar River Trail from Marion, under the Cedar Rapids Comprehensive Trails Plan.

The Iowa Economic Development Authority approved a maximum $400,000 Research Activities Tax Credit at its meeting Friday for a project to move production equipment from a plant Whirlpool is closing in Fort Smith, Ark., and to buy additional new equipment.

Read more at Business380.com

The Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa's only nuclear power plant. (AP Photo/The Des Moines Register, Harry Baumert)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will host an open house April 26 in Palo to discuss the 2011 safety performance of the Duane Arnold Energy Center.

The informal open house will be from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the City Council Chambers of Palo City Hall, 2800 Hollenbeck Road.

Read more at Business380.com

Construction for a parking ramp for the Iowa River Landing Clinic is seen in Coralville on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. (David Scrivner/SourceMedia Group)

The city of Coralville on Monday filed claims of conspiracy and interference with a contract against a group of businesses and property owners that filed suit to block its deal to bring Von Maur to Iowa River Landing.

The city filed a counterclaim in the original case, brought March 1. The counterclaim argues that the lawsuit caused unspecified contracts between unspecified parties not to be performed, or made the performance of the contracts “more burdensome or expensive.”

City Attorney Kevin Olson declined to specify the contracts to which the counterclaim referred, or their status, citing the ongoing nature of the litigation.

But the contract that would likely cause the biggest concerns for the city — its deal with Von Maur to buy the development site — isn’t in jeopardy.

“Von Maur is moving ahead with the store and we’re going to be acquiring the real estate in the next few weeks,” said Richard Davidson, the department store chain’s Davenport-based attorney, adding that the store pad was being graded “as we speak.”

The counterclaim also argues that the 18 plaintiffs “intentionally and improperly interfered with the contracts” by filing the lawsuit. It asks for punitive damages, arguing that the defendants’ conduct was “willful, wanton and malicious and in conscious disregard of counterclaimants’ rights.”

The original lawsuit argued that transaction conveying the land, a building and other incentives to Von Maur through OliverMcMillan, the city’s private developer, was structured illegally and constituted an illegal gift under Iowa law.

The suit also claimed that OliverMcMillan, as a California-based company, was not qualified to serve as an urban renewal agent for a municipality in Iowa, and that the deal circumvented Iowa’s urban renewal laws by selling property for less than market value.

An attorney for the 18 plaintiffs declined to comment on specifics of the counterclaim because he had not discussed it with his clients, but he indicated he found the action disconcerting.

“Any time a city files a lawsuit against its taxpayers, I think it’s a concern,” said Matt Adam, who’s representing the businesses and business owners.

District Judge Marsha Bergan has already rejected one motion by the city and OliverMcMillan to dismiss the lawsuit. She also has rejected the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary injunction to halt the land transfer.

Von Maur has been silent through most of the proceedings.

Davidson, Von Maur’s attorney, said Monday that the department store chain is “pretty confident it will be dismissed.”

“If this isn’t a legitimate use of urban renewal, I don’t know what is,” Davidson said. He said the city of Coralville has done “a fantastic job of turning a blighted area into a beautiful gateway to the city.”

The lawsuit also argued that Coralville violated state economic development grant laws by using more than $9.5 million in incentives to persuade Von Maur to move from adjacent Iowa City.

Davidson called that claim “malarky.”

The city of Coralville has said that Von Maur was already looking for a better store site with highway visibility and access when it was approached to consider Iowa River Landing.

Coralville’s agreement with Von Maur calls for the city to reimburse some of the expenses of terminating its lease at Sycamore Mall in Iowa City.

F&M Bank at 200 First St. SW. (image via Cedar Rapids GIS)

The defeat of a local-option sales tax referendum in Cedar Rapids provided an incentive for one downtown bank to complete flood restoration work.

F&M Bank plans to complete a renovation of its partially reopened downtown Cedar Rapids branch at 200 First St. SW, which was damaged in the June 2008 flood.

The community bank had already reopened the main floor drive-through portion of the branch at 200 First St. SW and moved a commercial lending and mortgage group to a second floor space that had been leased by the Greater Cedar Rapids Foundation. It had not restored the ground floor lobby.

Read more at Business380.com

The old Marion Farmers Market location was demolished this spring to make way for the credit union, while a vacant Hardee’s restaurant was demolished to make way for CVS, said Hannah Kustes, vice president of Abode Construction, the developer.

The credit union branch is slated for opening in 2012. It will replace a nearby Marion branch at 985 31st St. Marion with a much larger facility.

Read more at Business380.com

The Iowa River Landing is seen from the top floor of the future Iowa River Landing Clinic in Coralville on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. (David Scrivner/SourceMedia Group)

A rating agency Tuesday downgraded $194 million of Coralville municipal debt, citing the city’s heavy borrowing against tax increment financing funds and the need to subsidize its city-owned hotel-convention center.

Moody’s Investor Services lowered ratings on four categories of municipal debt. It maintained a negative outlook on Coralville’s debt, indicating the risk of another downgrade over the next 12 to 24 months.

The outlook includes the expectation that the city may further borrow against its tax base and tax increment districts “given a lack of policies regarding debt management and debt issuance,” the rating agency wrote.

While the revised ratings remained on the investor quality end of Moody’s scale, the trend has negative implications for borrowing costs as the city continues to finance its costly Iowa River Landing redevelopment project.

The rating referred to the need subsidize the city’s $58.6 million Coralville Marriott Hotel and Convention Center, which opened in late 2006 in its Iowa River Landing development.

“The negative outlook reflects the potential risk from the hotel, which could require unexpected contributions for debt service payments or improvements beyond what the city has set aside in the near to medium term,” the memo said.

Coralville’s reliance on tax increment financing revenue from the Coral Ridge Mall and surrounding retail areas to fund the Iowa River Landing, where it is developing its own retail project around a microbrewery and department store, has generated public criticism and a call for the state to reform its TIF laws.

Coralvile City Council member Bill Hoeft said Wednesday he had not received the specifics of the downgrade, although he knew it had been received.

Hoeft said the financial performance of the city’s hotel-convention center had been affected by the economic downturn in 2008 and effects of the 2008 flooding on business. But he said the city build the hotel with a significantly lower number of rooms than studies suggested was feasible, and there are hopes that business will improve.

Much of the city’s debt came from Iowa River Landing, Hoeft said. City Council members are cognizant of the debt burden and “plans are in place to repay the debt pretty aggressively,” he said.

“While we are 100 percent behind the Iowa River Landing Project, we are cognizant of the debt and want to pay that down,” he said.

One of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging reliance on public funds to develop Iowa River Landing said the downgrade memo validates the group’s concerns about the city’s reliance on public debt to develop the area.

“We think there’s a better way,” said Kevin O’Brien, a McDonald’s franchisee. “There should be more private money invested and less public money.”

If the city and citizens work together, O’Brien said, they should be able to identify solutions that don’t involve large amounts of debt.

Coralville City Administrator Kelly Hayworth and City Finance Director Terry Kaeding were out of the office Wednesday, and efforts to reach other city officials were not successful. City leaders have previously said that the hotel-convention center was projected to lose money in its early years. They said the hotel keeps conventions in the region that might otherwise leave the state.

Moody’s lowered its rating on $63.5 million of GOULT (general obligation unlimited tax rating) debt to A3, (upper medium grade) from Aa2 (high quality and very low credit risk).

The Moody’s rating on $54 million of annual appropriation general obligation bonds and $65 million of certificates of participation was lowered to Baa2 (medium grade with some speculative elements) from A1 (upper medium grade and low credit risk).

Finally, Moody’s lowered short-term rating on its Series 2010H and series 2011G Bond Anticipations notes from the MIG 1 (superior credit quality) category to MIG 2 (strong credit quality). Those notes totaled $11 million.

A four-notch downgrade, such as the one on the GOULT debt, “does not happen very often,” said David Johnson, a Moody’s spokesman.

The rating memo included some positives, noting that it incorporates “the city’s strong economy and ongoing growth in property valuations.”

(Rendering provided by Cedar Rapids Community Development Department)

Intermec Technologies Corp. broke ground Tuesday morning for a new $12.5 million facility in downtown Cedar Rapids.

The two-story building at 601 Third St. will be used for design and testing of the company’s handheld mobile computers.

Construction of the new facility will help keep Intermec, with about 250 jobs, in downtown Cedar Rapids after its previous facility was impacted by the 2008 Cedar River flood.

Everett, Wash.-based Intermec provides handheld computers and radio frequency inventory tracking systems.

The Iowa Economic Development Authority approved a $500,000 tax credit in October 2011 to Intermec for the project on the site of a concrete plant that relocated to southwest Cedar Rapids in May 1995.

It will replace an existing location at 550 Second St. SE.

Cedar Rapids-based ImOn Communications provides cable TV, high speed Internet, telephone and data services to a majority of Cedar Rapids and Marion, and is expanding services into Hiawatha.

The Gazette Company, based in Cedar Rapids, owns and operates local ABC affiliate KCRG TV-9, The Gazette daily newspaper and websites that include TheGazette.com, KCRG.com, Business380.com and HooplaNow.com.

The amount of the investment and other terms were not disclosed. The Gazette Company will have one seat on ImOn’s board of directors.

Read more at Business380.com

The federal agency, which enforces workplace civil rights laws, asked the full panel of 11 judges in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis to review a decision of a three-member 8th Circuit panel in February.

The ruling in February upheld a U.S. District Court’s dismissal of almost all of the EEOC’s complaint against the Cedar Rapids-based trucking company in a case involving more than 100 female CRST driver trainees, primarily by male drivers assigned to train them while on the road.

The case involved graphic complaints of women being told to provide sex in exchange for recommendations that they be hired as permanent drivers, being sexually propositioned and even being raped.

In asking for the review, the EEOC said the three-judge panel imposed a “unprecedented” requirement that the EEOC identify every potential victim before filing suit against CRST, saying the requirement was not supported by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The EEOC also argued that the appeals court panel’s decision regarding whether CRST is liable for trainer harassment of female trainees during over-the-road training conflicts with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in a Florida case regarding supervisor liability. The error, the EEOC claimed, affected its ability to seek relief for dozens of female trainees.

The motion made references to one appellate judge’s dissent in the February ruling, which said trainees were often confined in a truck for 28 consecutive days with their trainer, who controlled trainees’ daily activities ranging from when they could drive, to when they could use the bathroom, to when they could use the truck’s satellite radio.

CRST Expedited is a division of CRST International, based in Cedar Rapids. It uses the two-driver teams in order to transport goods faster than one driver alone could over long distances. It is not permitted by federal law to restrict access to employment on the two-driver teams to only men or women.

CRST International President Dave Rusch noted that the EEOC has not appealed a ruling by Chief Judge Linda Reade of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa that CRST Expedited did not have a “pattern of practice” of not following through on complaints of sexual harassment. He said that was the chief point of evidence and testimony in the District Court trial.

“At the end of the day, it’s been through two court systems and we’re pleased with the finding of both courts,” Rusch said.

The appellate court had kept two of the claims against CRST alive in it February ruling, referring them back to District Court for reconsideration.

A dozen Molly

The custom cupcake craze fueled by reality TV could be heating up in Iowa City soon.

A former employee of Chicago-based Molly’s Cupcakes plans to open the bakery’s first franchised location this summer in Iowa City, pending a $35,000 working capital loan to be considered by the Economic Development Committee of the Iowa City Council next week.

Jamie Smith, 29, of Iowa City, hopes to open the restaurant in late July at 14 S. Clinton St., the former location of Liberty Bank’s downtown branch.

Read more at Business380.com

While Wade Capital Management claims to be located at 668 19th St., Des Moines, the bureau said mail sent to that address, an apartment building, has been returned as undeliverable and the company is not registered as an Iowa corporation.

Read more at Business380.com

The Iowa Leading Indicators Index increased 0.1 percent to 104.7, the Iowa Department of Revenue reported. The six-month annualized change in the index became positive for the first time in six months.

The recent movement of the index suggests that Iowa employment growth will be positive but slow this spring, the department said in a statement.

Read more at Business380.com

Construction for a parking ramp for the Iowa River Landing Clinic is seen in Coralville on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. (David Scrivner/SourceMedia Group)

The city of Coralville and the Von Maur department store chain may have to decide whether to go forward with a development deal while a lawsuit is hanging over it.

District Judge Marsha Bergan on Friday denied the city’s motion to dismiss the suit over plans to bring Von Maur to its Iowa River Landing retail development. She said legal precedent required her to view the lawsuit in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, a group of 18 businesses and business owners in Coralville.

The lawsuit challenges agreements that would transfer a 7.2-acre site from the city to private developer Oliver McMillan for $1.5 million, with the stipulation that Oliver McMillan then transfer the property to Von Maur for $10 and take other actions to develop the site. The agreements also would provide Von Maur with a $9.47 million grant to offset construction costs for the new store.

The suit also claims the deals constitute an unlawful gift of property by a municipality and violate state laws against using economic development grants to relocate a business from one community to a neighboring community. It further says Coralville’s selection of Oliver McMillan as developer does not meet a state requirement that urban renewal commissioners reside within the municipality.

Von Maur plans to close its store in Sycamore Mall in Iowa City after it opens the new Coralville store. Coralville officials say the Davenport-based chain was already looking for a better location before their city recruited it.

Coralville City Attorney Kevin Olson said Monday that while he would have preferred to get the case dismissed, he did not have any qualms with the judge’s latest order.

“We accept her ruling, and I appreciate the fact that she ruled on all these motions as fast as she did,” Olson said.

On March 26, Bergan denied a preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs that would have blocked the transfer of city land for the deal. Olson declined to say whether the city would proceed with that transfer, which at one point was expected to occur this week.

The plaintiffs filed an amended and expanded lawsuit Wednesday against the city and Oliver McMillan. Among the changes are claims that the city circumvented state competitive bidding procedures on the development of urban renewal property.

The city argued in previous court hearings that granting the injunction to block the land transfer to Von Maur would cause irreparable harm and impede the project at a critical point.

City officials have said the incentives used to draw Von Maur are warranted because the anchor store will be a strong draw to shoppers and help attract other businesses to Iowa River Landing.

More than two dozen businesses and individuals filed the lawsuit, which was prepared by Cedar Rapids attorney Matt Adam.