Politics & Government
Top 9: Big Bank Blamed in $215M Theft, Buzzers to Block School Intruders, City Bans Controversial Surveillance Tactic
Why nine? Because the Patch community includes nine sites in Iowa: Ames, Ankeny, Cedar Falls, Iowa City, Johnston, Marion,Urbandale, Waukee and West Des Moines.
9. The federal government thinks U.S. Bank is complicit in the theft of $215 million by disgraced Cedar Falls investor Russell Wasendorf Sr. The U.S. Commodity Future Trading Commission filed a complaint in U.S. District Court saying the bank knowingly facilitated Wasendorf’s transfers of millions of dollars of customers’ funds to pay for a private jet, his downtown Cedar Falls restaurant myVerona and his divorce settlement, among other things.
8. Several parents with children at a Waukee Elementary School are asking leaders to reduce the size of classes.
7. Early voting on a $41 million bond referendum in Johnston that would build a new high school and remodel other buildings started last week. Election Day is June 25.
6. Real estate titan Bill Knapp quietly donated a 2.9-acre tract of land in West Des Moines to the hunger relief charity, Meals from the Heartland, last fall and went about raising most of the $1.9 million necessary to build a packaging center where other volunteers can experience what Knapp said he did: the sensation of handing food directly to a hungry person, “of feeling like you have a hand in it.”
5. Tate Glenn, a member of Westkirk Presbyterian Church in Urbandale, hopes to raise $12,000 - her salary to work as a community liaison for a medical clinic in Ghana, Africa – in a pair of fundraisers this month.
4. In Marion, Linn-Mar School District officials are looking at a district-wide security upgrade that could help keep unwanted visitors out of schools and stop, or at least slow down, security threats. The upgrade would include buzzers, intercoms and cameras at entrances of all the schools in the district.
3. Owners of a private airfield don't want to give up their land, which could throw a wrench in developers plans to build housing in Ankeny's north gateway.
2. Ames Patch reports that Iowa State basketball player Melvin Ejim could be a player on the Canadian team at the 2013 World University Games.
1. Iowa City could be among the first in the nation to ban drones, traffic cameras and license plate readers. A petition that generated 1,000s of signatures prompted the city council to support a first reading of the ban ordinance. However, they say they still favor using some of these devices in the future, but will wait for a review on red light cameras from state lawmakers.
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