One day after authorizing federal aid, President Donald Trump made a brief stop in Cedar Rapids yesterday to meet with officials and discuss additional help for the city. The president promised Cedar Rapids Mayor Brad Hart that the next phase, including aid to individuals, would be approved soon. The president did not tour damage in order to allow officials on the ground to continue their work restoring order and power, but did review a series of photos of both rural and urban damage during his time on the ground, around an hour.
A special investigation into concerns of malfeasance in the Tama County city of Clutier has turned up more than $100,000 in improper and unsupported spending of public money and undeposited collections. State Auditor Rob Sand says in a new report that the audit looked at the handling of city finances by former City Clerk Keri Kopriva from 2015 through the beginning of last year. The investigation found $64,530 in improper disbursements, $9,209 in unsupported disbursements and $43,450 in undeposited utility collections. The report finds much of the misspending included direct payments to Kopriva and unauthorized purchases on the city’s credit card.
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President Trump got a debriefing from state and local officials on the ground in Cedar Rapids during a brief stop in the city yesterday. Gov. Kim Reynolds, Cedar Rapids Mayor Brad Hart, and both U.S. senators Charles Grassley and Joni Ernst were among those at the session.
ITC Midwest is the company providing electricity to distributors such as Alliant Energy; shortly after noon yesterday, the company announced it had restored power to all those distributors, meeting their goal of doing so before the end of that day. ITC notes that permanent sustainable repairs to its infrastructure will still be needed, but this at least gets the power back on in affected areas. Some 1,200 miles of ITC line was out of service following last week’s storm, about 20 percent of their statewide capacity.
After being postponed once due to the pandemic, the fourth Iowa Rural Summit will be held this week…but virtually. Iowa Rural Development Council executive director Bill Menner told me they thought it was important to have a meeting of some sort this year, rather than cancelling entirely because so many cities can share ideas of how to respond to new, unique circumstances.
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The fourth Iowa Rural Summit will take place tomorrow and Friday, for the first time as a virtual event due to COVID-19. Iowa Rural Development Council executive director Bill Menner says many rural areas are adapting to the unique situations posed by the pandemic. More information about the event is at irdc.org.
President Trump was in Cedar Rapids yesterday to meet with local and state officials and get an update on recovery from last week’s derecho. The president approved a portion of federal aid Monday, with aid designed to help individuals promised to come soon.
The Trump reelection campaign and Republican Party groups are suing a third Iowa county, seeking to invalidate thousands of absentee ballot request forms that have been submitted by voters. The lawsuit against Woodbury County’s top elections official is identical to lawsuits last week against elections officials in Linn and Johnson counties. At issue are absentee ballot request forms that the three counties have mailed to most registered voters pre-filled with information, including names, dates of birth and a voting pin number that few people know…those mailings are in direct violation of a new state law on the topic.
