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On the Record » Recent Topics http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Put your name where your mouth is. en-US Thu, 23 Feb 2012 07:02:39 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/search.php Linda Schreiber on "21 Ordinance" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/21-ordinance#post-403 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:15:46 +0000 Linda Schreiber 403@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Today's article, "Another downtown bar, 808, closes," reports other bars may also close. Readers may draw their own conclusions as I have - bars were profiting from patrons who were under the age of 21. If businesses close, I hope new retail and commercial opportunities open for the influx of University of Iowa downtown workers who have shifted work locations resulting from the 2008 Flood and the new Riverfront Crossings District. Chris Liebig on "Sacrificing thought for "good behavior"" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/sacrificing-thought-for-good-behavior#post-402 Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:21:49 +0000 Chris Liebig 402@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ This is just a post to reply to some of the points made by the commenters on my guest opinion piece in today’s Press-Citizen (which is here: <a href="http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20101115/OPINION02/11150302/Teaching-more-than-unquestioning-compliance)" rel="nofollow">http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20101115/OPINION02/11150302/Teaching-more-than-unquestioning-compliance)</a>. I’m posting it over here in hopes of forestalling the death of this real-name forum. I do think that parents vary greatly as to how comfortable they are with relatively authoritarian approaches to behavior and discipline. I’m not comfortable with them, at least partly because I see our country becoming more authoritarian, and I wish it wasn’t. I don’t think thirteen years of “do as you’re told” is the best way to produce capable citizens of a healthy democracy, regardless of what effect it might have on standardized test scores. I’d much rather live in a country whose people are inclined to ask good questions, to develop their own sense of right and wrong, to be skeptical of other people’s assertions, and to think for themselves about the institutions they find themselves in, than in a country of people who score well on their math tests. That’s one reason why most of us would be more comfortable here than in, say, Singapore, where math performance is high and you can go to jail for criticizing the government. Is five years old, or eleven years old, too soon to start talking with children about thinking for themselves and about developing their own sense of right and wrong? I don’t think so. The alternative seems like a form of giving up: “They’re too young to reason with, so let’s not even try.” Moral reasoning doesn’t develop overnight. Moreover, appealing to the kids’ minds by reasoning with them is not only more intellectually engaging, it models respectful treatment of others in a way that manipulating them through the distribution of rewards simply doesn’t. Finally, peer pressure is an issue at even very young ages; is it really a good idea to teach kids to conform to social expectations, without trying to get them to think about whether those expectations are worth conforming to? I think I can best sum up my thoughts by referring to something commenter Bearsncats wrote. He or she wrote that there is not enough time to get the kids thinking and reasoning about their behavior because “there is content to be covered.” For one thing, my objection is that the time they are already spending on behavior, through programs like PBIS and Hoover’s use of Social Thinking, is being spent in a way that discourages critical thought. But more importantly, I don’t understand Bearsncats’s definition of “content.” To me, developing kids’ ability to reason about their conduct in the world, and their relationship to the social peers and to authorities, is content, and is at least as important as how quickly they reach arbitrary benchmarks on their reading and math scores. I’m afraid that our obsession with standardized test scores has led us to disregard big parts of the “content” of what it means to be well educated, such as the importance of curiosity, initiative, reflectiveness, creativity, skepticism, and a meaningful sense of oneself as an autonomous and thinking human being. To me, those are the qualities that are fundamental to being well educated, regardless of whether you know how to use the quadratic formula. (As one mom said to me, “When I imagine what I want my kids to be like, I don’t think, ‘I want them to be really quiet and obedient.’”) The pursuit of higher test scores, at any cost to those qualities that are hard to test, strikes me as a great diminishment of our conception of education. Really, I think we’re talking about questions of degree. Of course a school will have rules, and learning how to treat other people with care and respect is important, as are reading and math. But I think everyone would agree that it is possible, at some point, to go too far in ratcheting up expectations on small children. I’m just suggesting that we’re already there. When schools find themselves resorting to autism treatments to get the kids to meet their behavioral expectations, I think they need to ask whether those expectations are no longer age-appropriate. More on that topic here: <a href="http://ablogaboutschool.blogspot.com/2010/11/follow-up-on-press-citizen-guest.html" rel="nofollow">http://ablogaboutschool.blogspot.com/2010/11/follow-up-on-press-citizen-guest.html</a> Thank you again for the comments. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Grant Wood -- Part II" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/grant-wood-part-ii#post-401 Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:24:23 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 401@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ “Is this the book that finally outs Grant Wood?” That's the question many people asked me variations of that question after hearing my description of R. Tripp Evans’s new biography “Grant Wood: A Life.” In that recently released book, Evans is less interested in proving Wood’s homosexuality — which has long been acknowledged in academic circles — and more interested in showing how discussions of Wood’s sexuality allows us to view his work and his legacy from new perspectives. “I didn’t really feel the ‘uncanny chill’ that Evans describes when looking at ‘American Gothic,’” said Molly Moser, administrator of the American Gothic House in Eldon, “but maybe that was me not looking close enough. I’m always interested in seeing artwork from new perspectives.” University of Iowa art history Joni Kinsey — whose work is cited in Evans’s biography — agrees that seeing Grant Wood as a gay artist can offer new insight to interpreting his life and his art. “I don’t think that discussing his personal preferences need to change the way we see him or Iowa,” she said, “but it does enrich our understanding of Grant Wood’s work. For so many years, he was dismissed by the art world as being simplistic and old-fashioned. That his work was simply reductive of Midwestern ideas. … I think this discussion adds another, fairly nuanced layer that shows he was a complex artist.” Wanda Corn — a professor emeritus at Stanford University and a Grant Wood scholar cited repeatedly in Evans’s biography — said that while “this is finally coming out into the general public … you have to understand that this is not news for many of us in the academy.” Corn knows firsthand how hard it was three decades ago to persuade people that Grant Wood’s art is actually more complex and intriguing than they had assumed. She had trouble during the 1970s and the early 1980s finding supporters who would sign off on her work on Wood. And she had even more trouble getting galleries and museums interested in showing exhibits of Wood’s work. But Corn was persistent, and in 1983 she published “Grant Wood: The Regionalist Vision” (1983). During her research, Corn found much of the same evidence that Evans discusses in his book — especially the records of UI administrators who disagreed with Wood’s artistic philosophy and who used allegations of his sexual behavior as one of many tools in their attempts to have him removed from the art school faculty. But she said she was uncertain about what to do with such information. She already had been exploring some gender-oriented questions about Wood’s work, but she never dreamed of making sexual-identity questions central to her project of rehabilitating Wood among art historians. “I sometimes get blamed for suppressing evidence,” Corn said. “But the truth is that I wasn’t interested in those questions. I was just interested in getting this guy’s story together. In reintroducing him to an art world that had buried him. I was just interested in being a good art historian. … Evans is telling a very different story.” But Corn said she also found there already was a buzz in the 1970s and 1980s about Grant Wood as a gay artist. When she finally found enough museums interested in exhibiting her Grant Wood show, she wanted to include some parodies of “American Gothic” to demonstrate Wood’s enduring legacy in popular culture. “One of my big ideas was including the caricatures,” Corn said. “I had trouble at nearly every single venue. ... People didn’t think they were art. That they made fun of Wood. That they diminished the reputation that I was working hard to resuscitate.” By the time the show got to its final stop in San Francisco, she said a Los Angeles-based artist sent her a “gay ‘Gothic’” for consideration in the show. She and artist began a conversation about how Corn often described the roundness and fertility of Wood’s landscapes in such sexualized terms. “He asked me, ‘Why do you think ‘Spring Turning’ is all about female anatomy? You describe in terms of thighs, breasts, mother earth imagery. Couldn’t just as easily be about buttocks and backs of men?’” Corn said. “And it could have been,” she continued. “I realized then that I had been so gendered in my own thinking, that I had never considered such a reading. “ Corn said she’s never been so excited to realize her reading of a painting might not go far enough. That there was something that this other artist could see as a gay man that she simply couldn’t have appreciated. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Grant Wood -- Part I" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/grant-wood-part-i#post-400 Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:18:55 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 400@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ In 2002, during an effort to push for a Federal Marriage Amendment, a lobbying group suggested that the proposed legislation should be renamed “the American Gothic Amendment” because it was “designed to preserve traditional heterosexual marriage, captured by Wood as the bedrock of American society.” There are two basic problems with the group’s suggestion. * One, the age difference between the man and woman depicted in Wood’s most famous painting suggests that the pair represents a father and daughter not a husband and wife. * Two, such a suggestion ignores Grant Wood’s own homosexuality and his own complicated marriage near the end of his life. In fact, one can only imagine how different Wood’s life would have been if the Iowa Supreme Court had recognized marriage equity rights a century earlier. Scholarly open secrets Grant Wood probably would not have used the term “gay” — or even “homosexual” — to describe himself. And he definitely wouldn’t have discussed his sexuality with any journalists or art critics who would have had the temerity to ask him about it. And his surviving family members — especially his sister Nan, who was the model for the daughter in “American Gothic” — went to great pains to deny any such allegations for fear that Wood’s growing popular legacy would be tarnished in those overtly homophobic times. But most — if not all — of Wood biographers and scholars have long recognized the queerness of the artist’s sexuality. They have disagreed, however, on the level that such information should matter when evaluating Wood’s work. That’s why we think R. Tripp Evans’s new biography of Wood — “Grant Wood: A Life” — raises some very timely questions about the artist and his legacy. Taking Wood’s homosexuality as a starting point, Evans offers the first full-length account of how that important biographical factor added to — even fueled — Wood’s art. Readers may find that Evans goes a little too far in some of his readings of individual paintings. And they may disagree whether Wood's landscape images are really as sexualized and eroticized as he and other scholars describe. But Evans’s biography shows clearly that Grant Wood was a gay man who — because he chose to return to his home state rather than settle into the art scenes in more metropolitan areas — had little choice other than to stay firmly in the closet. If Wood had come out After all, if Wood had come out during his lifetime, he would have risked his “local boy makes good” reputation. There were no civil rights protections that would have kept the University of Iowa from dismissing him for homosexual behavior — and some UI administrators, who disagreed with Wood’s artistic philosophy, included such allegations in their efforts to have Wood kicked out of the art school faculty. Nor were there any nationwide groups that would have been open to encouraging and supporting Wood’s art — especially at a time when, as Evans points out, the arts themselves were considered “sissy” by many. And if Wood had come out in the 1930s and 1940s, it is unlikely he would have been embraced by his state and nation. At best, his reputation probably would have been more in line with his fellow Cedar Rapids native, Carl Van Vechten — a novelist who decided to leave the Midwest for New York and whose bisexuality became an open secret among the critics and journalists of the day. Van Vechten was an important figure during the Harlem Renaissance, but he is remembered today primarily by historians, and his novels remain in print largely because of scholarly, rather than popular, interest. Wood, on the other hand, became a national icon precisely because he abandoned the “bohemian” influence that first drew him to a life of art and focused instead on the redefining the powerful regional images around him. Wood’s legacy Just as marriage in Iowa didn’t crumble to its foundations when the state Supreme Court recognized that the state constitution grants gay and **** Iowans the same right to marry as it does their heterosexual brothers and sisters, so acknowledging Grant Wood’s sexuality changes nothing about his importance to the state and the nation. That lobbying group in 2002 was right to note that Wood represented something important and essential about America. But the group was terribly wrong about what that essential quality was. “For some, this all has to do with Iowa identity, both then and now,” said UI art history professor Joni Kinsey. “Then Wood wanted to represent Iowa as he saw it — as a place of beauty, of integrity, of national significance and of sometimes ironic complexity. … And now, when we think about Iowan identity, we have to fold in an embrace of many different sorts of diversity. None of which negates that earlier vision. It only adds to it.” Walt Whitman — the great 19th century poet of American democracy whose own sexuality became a topic of national conversation a generation ago — once wrote, “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” We hope the country continues to embrace Grant Wood as affectionately as he embraced it. And we’re proud that Iowa remains “Grant Wood country.” Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Non-Workshop afflilated Iowa City area authors" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/non-workshop-afflilated-iowa-city-area-authors#post-365 Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:17:36 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 365@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ I'm running a column on Monday about J.T. Dutton's new book, "Stranded," and I want to include a list of authors who have spent time in Iowa City but not for Workshop-connected activities. Here's the list I have so far. Do you have any to add? * Pat Irelan, author of “Central Standard: A Time, a Place, a Family” and “A Firefly in the Night.” * Leslie Pietrzyk, author of “Pears on a Willow Tree” and “A Year in a Day.” * Sarah Prineas, author of “The Magic Thief” series. * Delia Ray, author of “Ghost Girls” and “Singing Hands.” * Bart Yates, author of “Leave Myself Behind,” “The Brothers Bishop” and “The Distance Between Us.” Here, as well, is a draft of the column on "Stranded." The risks of being 'Stranded' By Jeff Charis-Carlson “In Iowa City, there are Authors and there are authors,” novelist J.T. Dutton wrote in a 2008 guest opinion for the Press-Citizen. “I mostly pass for the small ‘a’ kind, the kind you don’t cross the street to ask an autograph of.” And Dutton should know. She lived in Iowa City from 1999 to 2007 while her husband earned his Ph.D. in the English Department at the University of Iowa. After arriving in town already armed with an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Dutton had to settle for writing only in the small amount of free time she found between teaching at Kirkwood Community College and parenting two small children. As her husband was finishing his dissertation, however, Dutton decided to be more aggressive in trying to find someone willing to publish a revised version of her MFA thesis. After some initial disappointments, she eventually found an agent who suggested that her manuscript — which featured a teenage Deadhead narrator — might be better suited for the young adult market. After additional revisions that led her into some unexpected new directions, Dutton published her debut novel, “Freaked,” with HarperTeen in 2008. Dutton and her family have moved on to Ohio, but it was her time in Iowa that provided the inspiration for her recently released second novel, “Stranded” (also with HarperTeen). While spending many hours driving on the Highway of the Saints and other byways across the state, Dutton became fascinated with a landscape covered with fields and dotted with anti-abortion billboards. That’s when she got the idea of telling the story of a baby who was abandoned and left to die in one of those fields — a baby that the surrounding community comes to call “Baby Grace.” As Dutton honed the plot, she not only needed to invent a small town (Heaven, Iowa) and an otherwise straight-laced teenage mother (Natalie Sorenson), but she also had to find an outsider to narrate the story. She eventually came up with Kelly Louise Sorenson, Natalie’s 12-year-old cousin from Des Moines, who has to move back to Heaven to live with her grandmother and Natalie because of the Baby Grace incident. As the town’s name suggests, religious themes and symbolism are abundant in “Stranded.” If you were to pitch the novel as a movie, in fact, you’d probably say, “It’s ‘Juno’ meets ‘Saved.’” But in “Stranded,” the hyper-religious, small-town teenager (who seems straight out of “Saved”) has her baby and leaves it to die. And the secular, amoral teenager (who seems straight out “Juno”) not only provides the novel’s comic relief but also serves as its moral touchstone. “I preferred my conversations with (my Des Moines friends),” Kelly Louise says when her mother chastises her for some mild misbehaviors while helping to cover up Natalie’s tragic mistake. “They were much more sane and inane.” Kelly Louise’s constant wit and confusion helps Dutton undercut her storyline’s potential for melodrama. Not only is Kelly Louise named after Tina Louise, the actress who played Ginger on “Gilligan’s Island,” but Dutton also has endowed her with observational commentary as sharp and dark as anything the screenwriters could provide for high schooler Buffy Summers in TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” “When we reached the door and the sun streamed in, my eyeballs just about fell out,” Kelly Louise observes while trying to navigate Heaven High School. “I wondered if my sunglasses had enough UV protection to help me deal with all the shining judgment. My guess was likely not.” And after losing her own virginity to one of the town’s bad boy characters, the narrator accurately observes, “He and I were both in the same seminaked state, partners in our universal insignificance to God, who had dropped the ball in letting a tragedy like Baby Grace take place.” Dutton clearly is taking a big risk by writing a young adult novel that deals unabashedly with issues such as teen pregnancy, infanticide, religion, homosexuality and the underside of small-town values. But she also has read enough authors — of both the capital “A” and small “a” varieties — to know that good stories don’t reinforce boundaries; they break through them. “The publishing industry has been often blamed for putting dollar bills ahead of aestheticism,” Dutton wrote in her 2008 column, “but I discovered some of the books that are getting published for teens are groundbreaking and complex. True, some indulge in happy endings, gossiping girls, traveling pants, boys with attractive smiles and double lives as vampires, but others are by writers who have crossed from the adult trade into the youth market in order to produce material that is bound to influence and be echoed in prose to come.” “Stranded” definitely belongs in the latter category. Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at <a href="mailto:jcharisc@press-citizen.com">jcharisc@press-citizen.com</a> or 319-887-5435. Charlotte Walker on "Vicious hateful comments on "Officer hurt stopping alleged suicide attempt"" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/vicious-hateful-comments-on-officer-hurt-stopping-alleged-suicide-attempt#post-392 Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:05:21 +0000 Charlotte Walker 392@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Related to the 8/26/10 Press Citizen story by Lee Hermiston with the headline of "Officer hurt stopping alleged suicide attempt" <a href="http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20100826/NEWS01/8260318/Officer-hurt-stopping-alleged-suicide-attempt" rel="nofollow">http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20100826/NEWS01/8260318/Officer-hurt-stopping-alleged-suicide-attempt</a> This story has generated some very hateful comments related to the troubled person that is involved in the story. Here is one example that is extremely vicious and hateful. Heresince1969 wrote Tossing them in jail is indeed a waste. They should instead be tossed a death pill, or perhaps a death stick of gum. "Here. Chew this. You'll get your wish, everyone can go home and we can get back to caring about people who want to live." (It is shown to be posted on 8/26/2010 1:47:52 PM) Chris Offutt on "boxing at 4-H fairgrounds" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/boxing-at-4-h-fairgrounds#post-394 Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:16:10 +0000 Chris Offutt 394@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Where is the coverage of local people doing well? Such as the Kleinfelter sisters, both of whom vanquished their opponents in a pro boxing event in Johnson County on Friday, August 27th. (Not to mention the many local athletes who compete...) Nothing in sports. Nothing in local. This newspaper is my local newspaper, but this particular news is missing. Why? I'm severely disappointed in the lack of local sports coverage... Chris Liebig on "School supplies" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/school-supplies#post-390 Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:31:02 +0000 Chris Liebig 390@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ At the start of every year, our school (like all schools in town, I assume) asks the parents to buy a set of school supplies. This year my family (with three kids in elementary school) spent about $200 on those supplies. The list isn’t limited to just the pens, pencils and notebooks that the kids bring to school every day in their backpacks; this year, for example, we were asked to supply multiple containers of antibacterial wipes, bottles of hand sanitizer, boxes of tissues, reams of printer paper and lined paper, boxes of both sandwich-size and gallon-size ziplock bags, as well as crayons, markers, pencils, scissors, glue sticks, dry erase markers and erasers, watercolors, folders, and more. I know that $200 isn’t a big deal, and the issue probably isn't even worth posting about, but this practice still bothers me, for three reasons. 1. On principle, either we have free public education or we don’t. Buying the kids’ pencils is one thing, but I don’t see any meaningful distinction between asking parents to buy bottles of hand sanitizer for the classroom and asking them to buy the toilet paper for the bathrooms, or the desks the kids sit at, or the books in the library, or to chip in for the salaries of the teachers or the utilities for the buildings. There are a lot of good reasons that education is publicly funded, not the least of which is that we all benefit from living in a society where the people around us are well educated. Why the (admittedly small) departure from that principle? 2. Two hundred dollars is harder for some people than for others. Using this method to fund the purchase of school supplies has to result in disparities between schools with more high-income families and schools with more low-income families. If we’re going to ask parents to buy the school supplies, why not have all parents contribute to a general fund that would then be divided equitably among all the schools? (This same objection applies to the school system’s reliance on individual schools’ PTAs to fund school improvement projects, like playground upgrades. It’s just a recipe for worsening the income-based disparities that already afflict the schools.) 3. Sending thousands of families on separate trips to Target to buy school supplies at retail prices is an insanely inefficient way to fill the schools’ purchasing needs. Clearly those supplies could be bought more cheaply in bulk by the central administration. Even if they still billed the parents for the expense, we’d save time and money all around. I’m not blaming the teachers or the principals for this practice; they’re just doing what’s within their power to see that their schools have the necessary supplies. I don’t know whom to blame. I suppose no one wants to suggest that taxes should be raised to pay for school supplies (though it would be a minuscule increase), and the taxpayers can’t be blamed for refusing to pay for them, because they’ve not been asked to. Somehow we’ve just collectively decided, without ever actually deciding, that tissues and soap and even paper and pencils are not part of providing kids with a public education. It’s a mystery. In the end, I suppose, the practice won’t change unless the school board tries to change it. Is there any reason they shouldn’t? Meghann Foster on "Pre-Removal Plans for Kids Entering Foster Care" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/pre-removal-plans-for-kids-entering-foster-care#post-389 Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:43:22 +0000 Meghann Foster 389@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ This is a response to the August 13th editorial regarding pre-removal plans for families whose children will enter the foster care system. Two of our four children were adopted from the foster care system. I disagree with the editorial board's suggestion that Iowa's "stringent" removal criteria is questionable. Our family will be forever thankful that the State of Iowa has "stringent" standards for removing children. I can't express how grateful we are to the brave and compassionate social workers and court officials who put the health and safety of our kids first. They tirelessly monitored their well-being during the pre-removal period, and lobbied for swift action both times when it was apparent that despite their reasonable efforts, our children were not safe at home. I would also add that with both of our kids, the birth parents knew from the beginning that removal was imminent if they did not comply with the case plan made by DHS. And both times they took the children and hid when they knew the kids were going to be removed. Luckily the workers were able to find them. There is no denying the trauma of removal. Although he was a small infant at the time, our son still deals with the emotional impact of his experience. Anytime I walk out our door, he asks me if I am coming back. Every single night before he falls asleep he asks if I will be there when he wakes up. I do think in some instances a pre-removal plan would make for a less frightening and smooth transition, especially for older kids. This idea definitely has some merit. However, with child welfare cases, one size does not fit all. DHS should not paint with a broad brush and mandate any procedure when all these situations have unique dynamics. Workers should be allowed to work creatively and tailor specific interventions and planning for each situation. Too many Iowa children continue to be neglected and abused, with tragic consequences. My hope is that Iowa continues to have high standards and "stringent" removal criteria. What is most important is the health and safety of Iowa children, and applying the right methods for success with each unique family situation. Sometimes maintaining the family of origin is in the best interest of the children, but sometimes it is not. We shouldn't sacrifice a child's safety and well-being for the sake of family preservation. Linda Schreiber on "School to start August 19!" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/school-to-start-august-19#post-385 Sun, 01 Aug 2010 04:57:52 +0000 Linda Schreiber 385@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Just found out that school will start in two and a half weeks (plus a day) on August 19 . . . is it really necessary to begin school so early? Charlotte Walker on "Something going wrong on the regular comments -- disappearing comments" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/something-going-wrong-on-the-regular-comments-disappearing-comments#post-381 Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:01:48 +0000 Charlotte Walker 381@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Today two posts, one each by two separate members, have not appeared under an opinion piece without any notation that they were removed by staff. The two posts that I know about **for sure** are still in the comment archive and I did keep copies in case this message causes them to also disappear. I know for certain that my post did appear for a time so it had to be taken down by staff. I kept a copy showing the time stamp. It would be very disturbing if they were removed by a staff person who was being overly protective of one very controversial writer. Charlotte Walker on "In case you missed it -- Photos taken by DM Register at Regency Mobile Home Park" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/in-case-you-missed-it-photos-taken-by-dm-register-at-regency-mobile-home-park#post-380 Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:19:03 +0000 Charlotte Walker 380@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Here is the link to the photo collection published on July 11th about Regency Mobile Home Park: <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=D2&Date=20100709&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=7090811&Ref=PH" rel="nofollow">http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=D2&Date=20100709&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=7090811&Ref=PH</a> It includes photos of the abandoned junk trailers that need to be removed. There is no good excuse to allow the owners to leave those empty destroyed trailers in that park. Charlotte Walker on "Would the PC staff please explain this? "...being reviewed by the editors"" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/would-the-pc-staff-please-explain-this-being-reviewed-by-the-editors#post-377 Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:59:29 +0000 Charlotte Walker 377@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ This morning I noticed this staff comment on the profile page of someone who usally makes what I consider very good comments. "This community member's page is currently being reviewed by the editors. " What would cause that to happen? Can readers who disagree with a comment click the abuse option and cause this to occur? Its not possible to send that member either a private or public comment now either. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Issues to Watch Update -- Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/issues-to-watch-update-iowa-city-unesco-city-of-literature#post-368 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:09:57 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 368@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Earlier this year, the Press-Citizen Editorial Board identified 10 issues to watch in 2010. Here is a draft of the fifth in a series of editorials analyzing how those issues look nearly six months later. It’s one thing to be designated an international City of Literature by UNESCO — an honor that largely reflects the University of Iowa’s historic investment in creative writing programs. But it’s quite a different kind of undertaking to transform that impressive recognition into an independent, self-supporting, non-profit agency that helps bring about cultural, educational and touristic opportunities that would not have been possible otherwise. That transformative process began last summer with the founding of Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature. And with the organization now entering its second year, it’s become clear that it will take a few more anniversaries before Iowa City UNESCO is able to hurdle the high bar it has set for itself. Over the past year, the organization has helped facilitate the inaugural Iowa City Book Festival, the UNESCO World Book Day partnership between local booksellers and florists as well as the Hawkeye Readership Program, in which football players read with at-risk kids at local elementaries. The board also has hired the organization’s first executive director, Jeanette Pilak, who started on April 1. She now faces the difficult challenge of having to negotiate between the board members who are more concerned with “getting heads in beds and butts in seats” and the board members who are most worried about ensuring the literary quality of anything sporting the organization’s logo. But Pilak and her board members still have a lot more work to do if they are going to persuade area residents that the public money provided to Iowa City UNESCO represents an investment rather than a handout. The next opportunity to measure of the organization’s success will come with next month’s second annual Iowa City Book Festival — an event co-sponsored with UI Libraries and other groups. Expanding from last year’s one-day festival on Gibson Square, this year’s three-day festival will include a host of local and nationally-known authors, poets, publishers and filmmakers in several different locations throughout the near downtown area. Ensuring the success of this annual festival seems the most direct way for Iowa City UNESCO to help sustain and market the remarkable combination of resources that have made Iowa City a site of great writing for nearly a century. After the festival, the next opportunity to measure success will come when Pilak and the board finalize the organization’s strategic plan — a document that probably will focus on developing cultural tourism opportunities and enhancing local educational programs. Rather than develop new programs, the organization will identify and help strengthen programs that already are working well. It also will make connections between the people who have good ideas and the people with the expertise to get something done. The good news is that Iowa City UNESCO has taken a number of positive steps to position itself well for the next stage. The board, for example, includes representatives from the local major stakeholders who stand to benefit from the organization’s success — UI, Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty, Johnson County, the Chamber of Commerce and the Conventional and Visitors Bureau. That’s much better than if Iowa City had tried to claim this honor solely for itself. Besides creating an unnecessary turf war with the university and other local governments, such a narrow focus would have missed the broader vision — not to mention potential federal grant money — opened up by the UNESCO designation. But if Iowa City UNESCO wants to continue to prove that it is a worthwhile investment in the local creative economy, it will have to do more than just slap a logo on existing programs. By the time the organization’s second and third anniversaries roll around, Pilak and the board will need to provide a long list of projects that they helped facilitate — projects that would have been impossible before this organization came on the scene. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Maybe posting book reviews will spark some conversation here ..." http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/maybe-posting-book-reviews-will-spark-some-conversation-here#post-373 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:22:35 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 373@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Here's a draft of my review of Maureen Gibbon's "Thief." She'll be reading Monday (June 28) at Prairie Lights. If you’re looking for a novel that describes the beauty of a northern Minnesota summer — that makes you experience the quiet reflection that comes by living in an semi-isolated and under-insulated cabin, that goes into lyrical details about how to watch out for drunken boaters when you take your soul-refreshing moonlight swims — then by all means, read Maureen Gibbon’s “Thief.” The Minnesota Tourism Association should copy some of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate’s most scenic paragraphs and stick them straight into flyers and brochures to convey the beauty of region’s lake-filled landscape. But tourist associations — along with general readers — also should be warned. Although Gibbon’s novel evokes a powerful and haunting sense of place, her novel is based on a downright disturbing storyline: Suzanne, a 30-something high school English teacher who was raped as a teenager, tries to make sense of her past trauma by starting a letter-writing relationship with Alpha Breville, a convicted rapist who is doing time in Stillwater State Prison. The chronological setting for the novel is a little unclear. The summer in question takes place sometime before the Internet has become such an all-encompassing aspect of our lives. The complicated relationship begins when Breville’s hard-copy letter arrives as one of several responses to a personal ad Suzanne has placed in the newspaper nearest to her backwoods, summer rental. When Suzanne first sees the prison’s return address, both she and the reader consider the letter so inappropriate that they are ready to throw it in the trash unopened. But then, she asks, what’s the harm of seeing what the convict has to say? Especially given that the other responses come across as far too mundane or overly needy. Breville’s first letter proves to be both insightful and well-written. He obviously is someone who realizes the inappropriateness of even attempting this conversation. Someone who is pragmatically aware that the letter exchange may end at any point. Someone looking to make amends for his past and who recognizes that the power in this proposal lies in the hands of the recipient on the outside. When Suzanne answers the letter — when she rationalizes to herself that she can stop this conversation at any point if it ever seems unsafe or overwhelming — most readers will be offering themselves the same rationalizations for why they decide to read on: “Thief” is so well-written. The descriptions are so powerful. The potential for some kind of catharsis seems just around the corner on every page. And Gibbon makes it obvious that neither Suzanne nor Breville are being completely honest with themselves — let alone with each other. Whenever Breville seems at risk of over-poeticizing his solitude or downplaying the violence of prison life, then Suzanne is ready to call him on it. And when Suzanne says she’s only writing a means of torturing this man that she has never met, Breville willingly accepts that role but only to show that she’s writing for other reasons as well. It’s only when Suzanne and Breville start to go into the details of his crime (a hopped-up home invasion that included the rape of the homeowner) and her trauma (a complicated date rape situation), that readers see Suzanne slowly recognizing how much less power in this relationship she actually has than she originally thought. And when Suzanne decides to make the long drive down to Stillwater for to visit Breville face-to-face, the messiness of her real life — sped along by her flesh-and-blood relationships with several other men — begins to crack through the safety and seclusion of this odd epistolary relationship. It’s not surprising that Gibbon’s “Thief” has been compared often to Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening.” As in that 1899 novel, the stillness of the landscape surrounding Suzanne helps draw even more attention to emotional complexity in which she reacts to an socially inappropriate relationship. But Gibbon, a rape survivor herself, gives no clear sense of how to judge Suzanne’s actions. They may represent a healthy departure from Suzanne having to play the stereotypical roles of either victim or vigilante. Or they ultimately may prove to be self-destructive — leaving Suzanne, like Edna Pontellier in Chopin’s novel, to lose herself in that beautiful natural setting. Opinion editor Jeff Charis-Carlson can be contacted at <a href="mailto:jcharisc@press-citizen.com">jcharisc@press-citizen.com</a> or 319-887-5435. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Iowa City v. Housing Fellowship" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/iowa-city-v-housing-fellowship#post-374 Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:40:09 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 374@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Here's a draft of Wednesday's "Our View" When the Scattered Site Housing Taskforce made its recommendations to the Iowa City Council back in 2005, it began by issuing two general policy objectives: * No. 1: “Iowa City should strengthen its commitment to assisted housing and increase opportunities for affordable housing generally.” * No. 2: “Iowa City should adopt a scattered site policy to ensure a fair share distribution of assisted housing throughout the community.” The council’s current conflict with the non-profit Housing Fellowship demonstrates how the city could be in ethical — if not legal — peril because it has attempted to implement No. 2 without simultaneously working to encourage No. 1. Earlier this year, the Housing Fellowship had a Washington, D.C., law firm look through more than five years’ work of council minutes and city policies. The lawyers were looking into whether the “fair share” matrix — by which the council is supposed to scatter assisted housing throughout the community — is in fact in violation of the U.S. Fair Housing Act. And they were looking specifically as to whether the matrix would be in violation if ever applied to programs that use federal Community Development Block Grant funding. In a letter sent to the council earlier this month, a lawyer from the D.C. law firm takes 15 pages to argue that the council violated federal law back in March when it denied the use of block grant funding for the Fellowship’s plans to purchase land and build six two-bedroom units of affordable housing at 2500 Muscatine Ave. The letter makes it clear that the Housing Fellowship would prefer settling these issues without going to court. But the tone and thoroughness of the legal argument implies that the Fellowship’s board of directors seems fairly confident that, if the issue went to court, the city wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on. To make the case, the Fellowship’s lawyer uses council members’ own words against them. The following quotes from the March 1 work session, for example, certainly sound like they could violate the components of the U.S. Fair Housing Act that make it illegal to discriminate based on “familial status.” * “I’m not going to support this project, or any more … projects on the east side of town for subsidized housing, and in some of the areas in town that have an oversaturation (of affordable housing properties).” * “How many kids fit into a two-bedroom unit? I don’t know.” * “I’m not comfortable … with this site. Um, given … given the School District challenges in the area, given the fact that it’s across the street from an area where … we’re revitalizing, um, I don’t want to approve this at the time.” And the following quotes from even earlier council meetings suggest a similarly discriminatory motive. * “I mean we’re getting to the point where these neighborhoods are becoming undesirable, uh, for moderate families to move into and send their kids to school. I think it’s self-destruction, not only for the kids, but for the neighborhoods. So I’m not interested in approving this like it stands” (March 11, 2008). * “We just don’t want to see that increase and have more kids of poverty there” (Oct. 17, 2005). And the letter goes on to argue that the policies, as written, have a disparate impact on minorities and families with children. We can understand the rationale behind such public statements from the council. After all, they show that council members were working to implement Recommendation No. 2 from the Scattered Site Housing Taskforce. They show that councilors were trying to restrict the publicly-funded construction of affordable housing units in sections of the city where there already is a high concentration of such units. The problem, however, is that that council has done little in the past five years to implement the No. 1 recommendation of the Scattered Site Housing Taskforce. While the council wants to cut off sections of the city to additional publicly-assisted construction of affordable housing units, it hasn’t found an effective way to open up other areas of the city and allow such units to be sufficiently scattered. Another problem is that the statements quoted above suggest that some members of the council wrongly assume that "affordable housing" is some kind of code talk for "Section 8" housing or for "dilapidated and unsafe" housing. But affordable housing simply means "housing in which the occupant is paying no more than 30 percent of gross income for housing costs, including utility costs." The Housing Fellowship is one of hundreds of landlords throughout the county who accept Section 8 vouchers. And only a small minority of the families living in homes owned by the Housing Fellowship receive those vouchers to help with their rent. If city government had spent the last five years moving forward with plans for inclusionary zoning or other means of spreading affordable housing options throughout the area, then the Housing Fellowship probably would not have needed to get the city’s attention by having an out-of-town lawyer send a long letter. Unfortunately, the response so far to Housing Fellowship’s letter hasn’t been dialogue; it’s been silence. Discussions of affordable housing have been taken off the table entirely, and questions posed to the city employees about affordable housing are being deflected to the city attorney’s office. We hope the city and the Housing Fellowship can find some way to settle this issue without ending up in a long court battle. But we especially hope that this situation will persuade the council of the need to adopt inclusionary zoning or other legal and ethical means scattering affordable housing throughout the community. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Issues to Watch Update -- Flood recovery" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/issues-to-watch-update-flood-recovery#post-372 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:18:17 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 372@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Earlier this year, the Press-Citizen Editorial Board identified 10 issues to watch in 2010. Here is the fourth of a series of editorials analyzing how those issues look nearly six months later. • What we said then: "At the very least, the legislators need to consider how best to implement a recent recommendation that the state expand its regulation of floodplains from the '100-year' or '1 percent' level to the '500-year' or '.2 percent' level." • What we say now: The flash floods that followed Tuesday's rains demonstrated yet again that it's not a matter of "if" the rivers and creeks in our area are going to flood; it's a matter of when. That's why we're glad to hear that, during its meeting tonight, the Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission will discuss proposals to change the requirements in the city's flood ordinance. The current flood ordinance is written to address the so-called "100-year" flood, but the new proposals would help ensure flood-proofing at the 500-year water levels the city saw in June 2008. That would mean that all construction occurring in a floodplain would need to be elevated at least one foot above the 500-year-flood elevation. Even though the changes are likely to make some construction projects more expensive, we've all learned that it's better to pay a smaller expense to avoid the floodwater than to have to pay the financial, infrastructural and emotional expenses of being flooded. Plus, the changes could result in lower insurance premiums for residents. Even better, city staff wants to replace misleading terms "100-year" and "500-year" floodplain with a more straightforward "flood hazard area" that would be the same as the current 500-year flood. The proposed changes come more than two years since a surging Iowa River flooded its banks and proved the utter foolishness of Eastern Iowa's collective delusion that the flood of 1993 was as bad as things could ever get. The floodwater not only overwhelmed homes, businesses and university buildings, but it also laid waste to any government policies that allowed construction in the flood plain. Although this month's two-year anniversary of the flood marks a significant milestone, disaster officials say the recovery process will continue for several more years. Much progress has been made in the past 24 months in terms of cleaning up the physical remains of the flood and helping people get back into their homes and businesses. But we still have many milestones to pass before we can answer "yes" to the question, "Are we flood-recovered yet?" The past two years also has shown that our local leaders are at least verbally committed to learning some of the lessons from 2008 that they failed to learn 15 years earlier. After spending last year in a planning phase, the University of Iowa is poised to begin a flurry of flood mitigation-related construction. And Iowa City and Coralville are still acquiring flood-prone properties and moving forward on their mitigation efforts. But our local, state and national leaders still need to do more to show that they've learned they need to: • Stop trying to contain nature and try to work with nature -- that is, when possible, rely more on river's natural floodplain rather than levee and pump systems. • Provide more flood buffers by returning at-risk land to forests and wetlands. • Provide homeowners with better information about the risks of living in floodplains. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Issues to Watch Update -- Downtown" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/issues-to-watch-update-downtown#post-371 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:14:56 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 371@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Earlier this year, the Press-Citizen Editorial Board identified 10 issues to watch in 2010. Here is the third of a series of editorials analyzing how those issues look nearly six months later. Downtown development • What we said then: "Despite a recent ruling against the city for denying liquor license requests from bars with high PAULA rates, we hope actions taken by the Iowa City Council this past year will help change the economic climate so that it won't be as profitable for bars to cater to underage patrons." • What we say now: Although the 21-only opponents have turned in a petition to place the bar-entry age question on the November ballot, it's still unclear what affect the new 21-only ordinance will have on the evolution of Iowa City's downtown. We think the Iowa City Council needs to use the next five months to make sure that the public understands the benefits of this new policy. But 21-only isn't the only major change in the downtown in the past six months, and luckily the broader efforts to improve and revitalize the downtown don't have to wait until November. Many downtown supporters, for example, are very hopeful that the University of Iowa will be able to put a new School of Music in the first four floors of a still-to-be built tower on the Hieronymous property, and they are excited about the Recital Halls and Performing Arts Theatre that are proposed for the west side of Clinton Street. (Those downtown boosters also are hoping that UI will decide upon a downtown location -- possibly even in another mixed-use site -- for the UI Museum of Art.) The Downtown Association also has been very active this year. The association has hired a full-time executive director to expand its role in ensuring that the downtown: • maintains a broad mix of retail shops, restaurants and entertainment options and • remains a vibrant cultural and economic hub in the area. The association recently began sponsoring Downtown Saturday Night performances as part of Iowa City's Summer of the Arts, and it is making plans to hold the annual Taste of Iowa City in August and to launch the inaugural High Porch Picnic BBQ Cook-Off over Labor Day Weekend. To address concerns of late-night violence and other crime in the downtown area, the association also is working to install several privately funded and operated security cameras on the exterior of businesses. Add that to Iowa City's recent adoption of ordinances prohibiting smoking on the pedestrian mall and restricting solicitation to areas removed from store-fronts, and downtown merchants have much cause to celebrate that downtown is becoming a more welcoming and comfortable environment for patrons and their families. Those improvements are moving beyond the area directly recognized as the traditional downtown. Iowa City government, for example, has been looking to do more to link the downtown with the Northside Marketplace. Using funding from the state's Great Place designation, city staff members are working to improve the signage from the downtown to the Northside area. And there's even been talk about using the funds to extend some version of the city's literary walk through the passageway. The changes in the past six months make us very excited to watch how the downtown will evolve over the rest of the year. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Issues to Watch Update -- Hancher" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/issues-to-watch-update-hancher#post-370 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:13:47 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 370@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Earlier this year, the Press-Citizen Editorial Board identified 10 issues to watch in 2010. Here is the second of a series of editorials analyzing how those issues look nearly six months later. Hancher-Voxman-Clapp • What we said then: "Although reluctant landowners may complicate the two downtown options, the university and the Iowa state Board of Regents should move forward with what they believe is the best option for living up to Hancher's mission." • What we say now: Earlier this year, University of Iowa officials announced they actually want to go through with splitting the proverbial baby down the middle and rebuild Hancher close to its present site and move the School of Music's Voxman-Clapp complex to a downtown site. We can understand why UI officials like the split-baby option. After all, it addresses the concerns of the many music faculty and students who have felt isolated on the arts campus and who prefer being closer to the heart of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. At the same time, it ensures Hancher will be built on land the university already owns -- meaning that reconstruction wouldn't be contingent on the sometimes lengthy process of buying out private landowners. But it also means the two projects -- while drawing from the same FEMA flood reconstruction funds -- are taking on different time tables and need to be discussed separately. Downtown School of Music The decision against moving Hancher downtown disappointed many downtown boosters who had dreams about the economic development opportunities that would follow building a more urban university auditorium. But a new Clapp auditorium still will help broaden the cultural opportunities in the downtown area and could help draw in an evening population very different than the current bar-goers. And the plan recently approved by the regents could revitalize another long delayed dream of downtown developers. Since 1988, the lot at the corner of Burlington and Clinton streets has been slated for development. The latest incarnation was the proposed 13-story, $60 million Hieronymus Square, but that project mostly has been dormant since 2006. On Wednesday, the regents unanimously approved a plan to buy four and a half floors in a 12-story condominium project to be built by Hieronymus Square Associates. That would give a home to the UI School of Music -- which has been dispersed across campus since the 2008 floods -- as well as provide the downtown with a mixed-use building that features offices, commercial businesses, condominiums and additional rental space. We're glad to see the university continue to work with the Iowa City community to find win-win-win solutions for students, faculty and the city at large. Hancher After the 2008 flood, Hancher officials had to scramble to find temporary facilities for the already scheduled 2008-09 season. They had to cancel all Broadway and dance performances because there were no appropriate venues available for them. For the 2009-10 season, Hancher officials managed to pull together impressively eclectic list of events to be held in locations from the Joffrey Towers in Chicago, to the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, to the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids. And now Hancher officials announce that they've overcome a "logistical nightmare" and put together another impressive list of events for the 2010-11 season to be held at 18 locations. So we still are impressed with how, after nearly four decades and without the advantages of central performing center, Hancher officials continue to honor and to expand upon President Virgil Hancher's vision for the arts. But many Hancher supporters worry that the longer Hancher's vision remains without an architectural embodiment, the more difficult it becomes for Hancher staff to keep in touch with the patrons and the donors who help keep the vision alive. Now that the new Hancher has been separated from Voxman-Clapp complex, it's time to move forward with construction as soon as possible. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Issues to Watch Update -- Redistricting" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/issues-to-watch-update-redistricting#post-369 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:12:26 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 369@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Earlier this year, the Press-Citizen Editorial Board identified 10 issues to watch in 2010. Here is the first in a series of editorials analyzing how those issues look nearly six months later. Redrawing school boundaries • What we said then: "Many in the district say that the past year's battles to save Roosevelt School and to keep public bus routes going to Regina will pale in comparison to the aftermath of whatever changes the school board approves for redrawing school boundaries throughout the district." • What we say now: There are those who say the pain was worth it. They say the district-wide debates revealed conflicts and disagreements that have been bubbling under the surface for years. They say that the district now has amassed enough information to make data-driven decisions for long-term planning. But the 2010 redistricting debacle also showed that our schools leaders still have no idea how to strike a balance between too little community input and too overwhelmingly much. They either failed to take heed from lessons learned in the 2009 Roosevelt debacle or they simply overcompensated. It's obvious that district officials needed help from outside consultants to keep them on track, but it's not clear that they made the best use of the consultants' expertise. It's likewise obvious that the 38-member redistricting committee was filled with intelligent and engaged people, but the members themselves were never clear about what their role was supposed to be. We would have had more faith in the process if we could figure out how Scenario 2 led to Scenarios 3 and Scenario 4. And we're left scratching our heads so how the final recommendations put forward by the committee evolved into a plan that basically keeps the status quo at the elementary level and simply sends Lincoln and Hills to City, instead of West, on the high school level. In the end, the school board members made a series of decisions that were theirs to make all along -- with or without public input. And the new boundaries aren't much different than what board members could have come up with last fall -- without spending so much money, time and goodwill. Yet there are some positive lessons that can be learned from the past five months: • Community members are more engaged in school issues than they ever have been before. Although much of that engagement gets expressed through anger and frustration, neighborhoods and school communities are organized to a degree that would have been hard to imagine five years ago. • Community members now understand that, in order to avoid such a painful process taking place, the changes approved by the school board cannot be etched in stone for the next two decades. Schools boundaries -- especially in a growing community like ours -- should never be thought of as fixed lines. The district needs to have an ongoing boundary committee that not only helps to redraw lines when the district builds a new school, but also makes occasional tweaks to address the dynamics of our changing neighborhoods. Superintendent search • What we said then: "Don't pay exorbitant sums for a search firm. Don't violate the open meetings law. And don't offer a starting salary more than what the guy with 10-years experience is making now." • What we say now: Although coming from much smaller district, incoming Superintendent Steve Murley is going to make about $10,000 a year more in base pay than Lane Plugge made after 11 years here. We thought Murley seemed the best fit for the district of the three candidates the school board brought in for public interviews. We wish him luck when he starts July 1, and we hope he's worth all the money the district is going to pay him. Linda Schreiber on "UI considers Hieronymus Square for School of Music" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/ui-considers-hieronymus-square-for-school-of-music#post-361 Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:22:16 +0000 Linda Schreiber 361@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ A lot of people will support moving the University of Iowa's School of Music to a downtown Iowa City location, but I'm not one of them. The University owns land along both sides of the Iowa River from City Park to the Burlington Street Bridge. And, from that point the University owns land east of the river to the Benton Street Bridge. That's just along the river. How much land does the UI own in downtown Iowa City? I think we'd all be surprised to learn just how much land the University has acquired in recent years. An inventory of University-owned property doesn't resolve a parking issue for UI School of Music audiences. In its location along the river parking parking was free. In downtown IC, parking isl not free nor will exiting a ramp be quick when audiences are large. (When Johnson County determined it needed land currently in use as a parking lot to add to the county jail, the University expressed no interest in negotiating and sadly that need is unfilled. Ultimately it will cost JC taxpayers more to resolve the issue.) Before the Regents make a decision to acquire more downtown land (which can never be replaced and has a finite amount of available land south of Burlington Street) perhaps an enterprising young reporter (or UI student) will make an extensive search and a map the property off the tax rolls. It could be revealing and possibly change my mind about a downtown location for its facilities. Tom Gill on "Branstad & I-Jobs" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/branstad-i-jobs#post-358 Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:50:06 +0000 Tom Gill 358@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Rant, Where is Johnson County? Terry Branstad comes to town goes to a retirement home and calls I-Jobs a folly. Keep it up, you will get him back with the likes of his $231 folly, the Iowa Communications Network, along with his convicted friend Clark Mcleod. Must be people around here can't get enough of David Oman. Charlotte Walker on "Why are instructors at the senior center paid as independent contractors?" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/why-are-instructors-at-the-senior-center-paid-as-independent-contractors#post-356 Tue, 25 May 2010 09:59:20 +0000 Charlotte Walker 356@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ I found out yesterday that almost all the instructors teaching classes conducted within the Parks and Recreation Department are paid as city employees. But, at the Senior Center almost all of the instructors for classes that have fees are paid as Independent Contractors. So far I have not received a reply from the finance department about this subject. Why the difference? At the senior center the class members pay the instructor directly on their first day of class. The money does not get recorded in the city books for those individual payments. The instructor, according to the senior center's printed policy, pays the senior center 25% of the gross revenue. I do not know if individual payments showing the name of the instructor gets recorded in the financial public records or not. Also something else caught my eye last week related to the independent contractors at the senior center. On page 4 in the new Senior Center Program Guide there is this sentence: "Independent Contractors pay 25% of their gross revenue (excluding material costs) to the Center as compensation for class promotion and the use of Center space and equipment." I wonder about the "class promotion" part of that sentence since there is a lot of what appears to be very expensive advertising going on about the Senior Center, on cable TV Ads and in slick full page color ads in a couple of Press Citizen publications. The frequent cable TV ads on several cable channels have been quite a surprise. Now its possible that there have been some generous bargains that made that expensive looking advertising possible and worth the price. The mailing costs for the Program Guide has to be considered too. How much money is being spent to promote the classes being taught by independent contractors? Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Saturday's Our View -- 21-only and human rights" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/saturdays-our-view-21-only-and-human-rights#post-345 Thu, 13 May 2010 13:10:39 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 345@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Here's a draft of Saturday's "Our View" Earlier this month, Mike Porter — owner of The Summit, One-Eyed Jakes and Vitos — announced he was going to have to cancel comedy at his bars because he thought the impending 21-only ordinance would take away too much of the audience. Yet on Monday, Porter decided to do his own stand-up routine for the Iowa City Council and argue that he should not be required to enforce the 21-only ordinance because the ordinance would violate the prohibitions against age discrimination in Iowa City’s human rights ordinance. According to the Iowa City Code (2-3-2), “It shall be unlawful for any person to deny any other person the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages of any place of public accommodation because of age, color, creed, disability, gender identity, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation. This section shall not apply to discounts for services or accommodations based upon age.” Porter went on to remind the council that the ordinance also prohibits anyone from discriminating or retaliating against a person who has “has either lawfully opposed any discriminatory practice forbidden by this title, obeyed the provisions of this title, or has filed a complaint, testified, or assisted in any proceeding under this title.” “What that’s saying,” said Porter after he passed out copies of the human rights ordinance to the council, “is it’s illegal for anybody to tell me I have to discriminate.” And to top off his routine, Porter said he plans to file a human rights complaint against the city. Perhaps if it wasn’t such an insult to the original intent of the human rights ordinance — not to mention to the people who actually do endure the very real examples of discrimination that continue to take place in society — Porter’s comedy routine would have been downright hilarious. Instead, it was all a very bad joke. If Porter wants to continue to allow 19- and 20-year-olds in his establishments after 10 p.m. — let alone 18-year-olds, younger teens or even children — all he has to do is diversify his businesses so that they don’t receive more than 50 percent of their revenue from alcohol sales. Then the 21-only ordinance won’t apply to his establishments, and the city will have no compelling public interest to require that the entry age after 10 p.m. match the legal drinking age. But as long as the state sets 21 as the minimum drinking age, the Iowa City Council has both the authority and a compelling interest to require a 21 entry age for bars whose receipts show that their primary reason for being in business is to sell alcohol. Perhaps it’s time for Porter to try out a new routine. Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Thursday's Our View -- Time for a decision about redistricting ..." http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/thursdays-our-view-time-for-a-decision-about-redistricting#post-335 Wed, 05 May 2010 14:04:12 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 335@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ (Feel free to add any myths that you'd like to see corrected ...) It’s time for the Iowa City School Board to make a clear decision about redistricting — including whether the district should be taking specific, short-term steps to move toward developing a third comprehensive high school. Nothing is going to be gained from forming another committee, issuing more scenarios or holding any more large-scale public forums. Prolonging this process will serve only to torture the community. As letter writer Cindy Meis states on Thursday's Opinion page, “As a parent in the Iowa City School District, I think my husband and I have been diligent in expressing our opinions and support throughout the many months of discussion and open forums. We’ve committed time to neighborhood groups, emails, letter writing, PTA meetings and community dialogue. And we are completely burnt out.” After all, nothing the school board decides will be chiseled in stone. Although the board members are making an important decision with long-lasting consequences, they aren’t making a decision that will remain unchanged for decades — not even for the next few years. The community will still need to be involved with regular redistricting decisions, but those discussions need to start taking place at a much less intense pace. That’s why it’s time for board members to make a decision and to articulate clearly why they think some specific changes need to be made. Then they need to be equally clear about what triggers or benchmarks must in place to ensure that, a few years down the road, the current projections on which they base their current decisions match up to the actual numbers of students and the actual state of finances. And when making this decision, the board needs to make sure that it is listening to calmer voices and not merely allowing the loudest voices to drown out all others. In order to ensure that cooler heads prevail in this process, there are a few myths that need to be corrected. * Myth No. 1: “City High is a bad school.” There is no data to suggest that City High is a bad school. Test scores, academic accolades, parental testimony, student success and teacher quality all show that City High can hold its own with West High or nearly any other high school in the state. * Myth No. 2: “Everyone thinks that City High is a bad school.” Although Myth No. 1 does exist, it’s not nearly as widespread as some may suggest. Coralville and North Liberty parents, for example, don’t have to believe secretly that “City High is a bad school” in order for them to worry about the inconvenience and transportation safety issues of involved with sending their teenagers to eastside Iowa City. Some eastside advocates risk making this myth into a self-fulfilling prophecy if they continue to view every counter argument as a personal slight. * Myth No. 3: “The proposed ninth grade center will grow into a comprehensive high school by adding a new class every year.” There has been no such promise made about the ninth grade center proposed in Scenario 4d. And if the board decides to move forward with something like 4d, then the board members need to explain exactly what benchmarks need to be reached before the center grows to accommodate 10th, 11th and 12th graders. (The board also will need to explain how the plan won't damage either of the two existing comprehensive high schools.) * Myth No. 4: “All kids who qualify for free and reduced lunch are the same.” When considering demographic concerns, the district has focused on free and reduced lunch rates because the courts consistently have upheld a district’s ability to use “socio-economic status” — as opposed to race — when drawing school boundaries. And studies show that students from higher-poverty schools will perform better when moved to a more mixed environment, and those students will not bring down the performance of the "strong students" already there. But there’s a big difference in the educational preparedness of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch — those coming from families who have known generations of poverty will have a very different educational outlook than, for example, those coming from families who qualify temporarily as one or both parents study at the University of Iowa or Kirkwood. * Myth No. 5: “Hiring RSP & Associates was a waste of money.” We were skeptical about the need for an outside consultant to help with this redistricting process. But the past five months have demonstrated jut how difficult it is to change school boundaries in a way that addresses the four criteria. And the data collected by the consultants will help the board and administration in whatever plan they decide for the district. Matthew Butler on "Critics fail to sway council on solicitors" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/critics-fail-to-sway-council-on-solicitors#post-343 Tue, 11 May 2010 13:36:20 +0000 Matthew Butler 343@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ <a href="http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20100511/NEWS01/5110329/1079" rel="nofollow">http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20100511/NEWS01/5110329/1079</a> I know the council feels they are acting fairly and rationally by moving panhandling to sanctioned areas. They've stated several times that they are trying to strike a balance between the needs of donation seekers and business owners. However, as has been demonstrated in the past, rich people have more weight than poor people when it comes to tipping the scales with this council. The balancing act they purport to work so hard for is overwhelmingly in favor of the Downtown Association and well-to-do consumers. As is too often the case, it takes dozens of citizens speaking out and protesting in order to offset the one or two overly sensitive people complaining about the "undesirables" of this town. It's embarrassing for Iowa City, and as Mike Wright correctly put it, "mean and small-minded". Terry Dickens, council member and downtown business owner, stated that he's had customers "flee the ped mall to his store to escape the aggressive panhandling". He also went on to state "you people aren't downtown everyday like I am". His statements demonstrate just how out-of-touch he is with reality. The vast majority of people who are downtown everyday feel perfectly comfortable walking, shopping, visiting, and enjoying this public area. It's simply absurd to call the panhandling "out of control" and aggressive. Over a dozen people, many who live and work downtown every day, showed up last night to demonstrate to the council that not one citation has been written for aggressive panhandling, despite Mr. Dickens' insistence that it's a regular problem. Most people who are downtown regularly know how overstated and exaggerated these aggressive panhandling claims are. It's just NOT happening, yet the council continues to defy reality and insist that it is. There are no police records, no citations, no formal complaints... only the anecdotes of a couple of rich shoppers. The ped mall is a public commons. It's meant for everyone. As long as you are obeying the law you are welcome - even if your hair is messy and you smell kinda funny. However the message this council is sending to Iowa City residents is that you are only welcome if you're there to spend money. This is not the Iowa City many of us moved here for. It's a shame and sends our town in the wrong direction. Tom Gill on "North Dodge Fire Station" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/north-dodge-fire-station#post-334 Tue, 04 May 2010 11:55:05 +0000 Tom Gill 334@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Just asking? Has anyone really taken a look at the site for the new North side Fire station? It is a very small lot with approximately 60 cars backed up in front of it at busy times. An Iowa City Planner must be involved? Jeff Charis-Carlson on "Saturday's Our View (nine more redistricting myths)" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/saturdays-our-view-nine-more-redistricting-myths#post-340 Fri, 07 May 2010 14:36:13 +0000 Jeff Charis-Carlson 340@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ On Thursday, we printed a list of five myths that need to be corrected if cooler heads and calmer voices are going to prevail in the Iowa City School Board’s redistricting discussions. Here are nine more to add to the list: * Myth No. 6: “The board is making a decision that will stand for 20 years.” Because it’s been decades since the district has had a boundary overhaul, it’s understandable that some people might think the board is looking to set boundaries in stone for another generation. But the rancor of the current redistricting debate has shown that these discussions need to be taking place on an ongoing basis — before problems reach a tipping point. * Myth No. 7: “Students who qualify for free and reduced lunch can’t learn.” As educational theorist Richard Kahlenberg explains, “In discussing the difficulties of making high-poverty schools work, it is important to draw a distinction between the problems associated with concentrations of school poverty and beliefs about the ability of poor children to learn. Many people confuse the first with the second. Evidence suggests that children from all socioeconomic groups can learn to high levels if given the right environment. High-poverty schools, however, do not normally provide the positive learning environment that children need and deserve.” Or, as veteran teacher Dale Hibbs says, “All kids can learn.” * Myth No. 8: “High school enrollment is declining.” It’s true that the total high school enrollment in the district has been relatively flat for the past decade — around 3,000 students each year. However, Johnson County births — and by extension kindergarten enrollments five years later — have been sharply higher. Current junior and senior class enrollments are about 800, while K-4 grade enrollments are 900-1,000 each. That’s why the consultants’ low projections suggest the district will have 3,400 high schoolers in the next three years — with a midlevel project of 3,700 by 2014-15. Those numbers may not match the actual numbers perfectly — few of the district’s past projections have — but they suggest that high school population will be growing. * Myth No. 9: “West High is a much less diverse high school with much more affluence and fewer educational challenges than City High.” City High does have a slightly higher rate of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, but West High has its own challenges as a school with a diverse population that comes from west Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty, Hills, University Heights and the county. * Myth No. 10: “The school board promised a third high school in the 2007 local option sales tax vote.” In 2007, the school board did list a third high school as one possible — even probable — use of SILO dollars, but in all the board public statements, it was clear that it could not “promise” to spend the money on a third high school because any use of future funds — by future boards — would be dependent on the district’s financial situation and the needs of students at the time. * Myth No. 11: “The committee process resulted in one preferred scenario.” The charge to the 38-member redistricting committee was to come up with two or three scenarios for the board to consider, which the committee did. The board now has the option — as well as the responsibility — to consider those scenarios and to tweak them to better meet the needs of the district. * Myth No. 12: “The North Corridor communities are going to be satisfied with a ninth grade center.” The public forums in North Liberty and Coralville have shown there is widespread support there for the district building a third comprehensive high school. But Scenario 4d does not offer a third high school. It offers a ninth grade center as a means of alleviating crowding at West High. There is a possibility that this center could grow into a third comprehensive high school, but there is no time table as to when the center would be built or how quickly it would expand. * Myth No. 13: “The Iowa City area is a progressive and inclusive community that cherishes diversity.” Well, yes, but it seems progressive and inclusive efforts get supported only until they directly affect “my city,” “my neighborhood,” “my child’s school” or “my family.” * Myth No. 14: “When parents from Twain or Grant Wood say, ‘Don’t change our school,’ they are fighting for their community, but when parents from Lincoln say the same thing, they are just being elitist.” Just as the Roosevelt community understandably is going through a grieving process over impending loss of its school, so every school community significantly affected by these changes understandably will go through a grieving process of their own. As UI geography professor Gerard Rushton told the Press-Citizen earlier this year, “The (community) costs are not just in the schools where you are increasing the percentage (of free and reduced lunch) but also where you are reducing the percentage.” Charlotte Walker on "Proposed fee for youth sports. What's your opinion?" http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/proposed-fee-for-youth-sports-whats-your-opinion#post-332 Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:20:49 +0000 Charlotte Walker 332@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ The proposed fee for the youth sports is a serious matter that does merit discussion. For those who missed the story, here is the url for quick reference: <a href="http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20100430/NEWS01/100429012/Iowa-City-proposes-new-fee-for-youth-sports" rel="nofollow">http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20100430/NEWS01/100429012/Iowa-City-proposes-new-fee-for-youth-sports</a> There are better ways to come up with the funds that these proposed fees might generate. It seems very wrong to add to the cost of participation in youth sports. I will start this off with what I wrote earlier this morning in the regular comments. There are big budget savings that could be made and should be made by consolidating the Recreation Department with the Senior Center. Right now there is a salaried staff vacancy at the Senior Center that need not be filled if a smart consolidation would take place. That staff vacancy need not be filled even if a consolidation didn't take place imo. To begin with, that very large hard to maintain historic building that is being used by the Senior Center is much too large for current use by our older people. The staff costs take up most of the budget, including an incredibly large salary for its director. But, we have a very weak city council and a nice but timid city manager. It is predictable that the council will choose a nice but timid city manager replacement too. So large budget savings have little chance of taking place in Iowa City. John Neff on "I think you can shut this down." http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/topic/i-think-you-can-shut-this-down#post-298 Sun, 11 Apr 2010 09:39:14 +0000 John Neff 298@http://ontherecord.press-citizen-media.com/ Nice try.