Government

  CEDAR RAPIDS — Easy to miss Wednesday in Mayor Ron Corbett’s State of the City updates on $300 million in city flood-recovery building projects was a cost jump of more than $25 million in the city’s hotel and Convention Complex projects. Making the climbing costs tough to notice in the annual mayoral speech was [...]

UPDATE: Mayor Ron Corbett, tired of comments he hears about what’s wrong with the city, asked an audience of 500 on Wednesday to fall in love with Cedar Rapids. In the annual mayoral State of the City speech at the Hotel at Kirkwood Center, Corbett singled out a handful of examples — neighborhood presidents, a [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — Linn County supervisors voted Wednesday to end a longevity bonus to Sheriff Brian Gardner’s second-in-command. Prompted by County Auditor Joel Miller, the supervisors voted unanimously to reaffirm a 1998 policy that ended longevity pay for elected officials and their appointed deputies. Sheriff’s Col. John Stuelke, appointed chief deputy by Gardner, had continued [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley doesn’t expect much progress on cutting the federal deficit this election year. “It’s very hard to see a way forward in this environment,” Braley told The Gazette Editorial Board on Wednesday. It’s not impossible, though: Braley cited his experience last spring with four town hall meetings organized with [...]

Mayor Ron Corbett will announce a new naming rights agreement with U.S. Cellular for the city’s arena and convention center at his noon-time State of the City speech at The Hotel at Kirkwood Center. The new agreement with U.S. Cellular covers 10 years, and will bring in a total of $3.8 million over the period. [...]

Judgment week in the Iowa Legislature left a number of hoped-for bills in ashes on Wednesday. House subcommittees opened the day by pulling the plug on measures that would have created a crime for failing to report a missing child, mandated that employers grant up to 200 hours of unpaid leave for workers who wanted [...]

A lottery ticket is a piece of paper representing a dream. To give everyone a fair chance at the dream, the Iowa Lottery tries to build security into the system to keep scammers, thieves and code-crackers from snatching jackpots. “I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but it would take a huge conspiracy,” said Steve Bogle, vice [...]

Curated by Gregg Hennigan, Terry Coyle/The Gazette Barring approval of a ban making its way through the Iowa Legislature, traffic cameras are on their way to Iowa City following a 4-3 vote by the City Council Tuesday night. Here are the answers to burning questions about the cameras.   Q: When will the cameras be [...]

DES MOINES —The legality of an order by Gov. Terry Branstad that effectively closed 36 workforce development centers last year was argued Tuesday night before the Iowa Supreme Court. An attorney representing a group of Democratic legislators and Danny Homan, leader of the American Federation of State, County and Municpal Employees Iowa Council 61, told [...]

Linn County commercial and industrial property has been re-appraised for the first time in nearly 30 years, boosting some property tax assessments. Overall, the value of commercial and industrial property in the county increased 17.23 percent, from $718,534,433 to $842,358,000, Chief Deputy Assessor Dave Ellis said. Ellis said 64 percent of the increase was due [...]