Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
The website designed to allow citizens to track how and where funds are being allocated as part of the $830 million I-JOBS infrastructure plan now includes an interactive tool to improve transparency, Gov. Chet Culver announced Thursday.
In June, Culver’s deputy chief of staff, Phil Roeder, told The Iowa Independent that 100 percent transparency was one of the most important aspects to the program’s success. Bill Allison, a senior fellow with the non-profit government transparency watchdog the Sunlight Foundation, said at the time that the key for Iowa is to ensure there is one spot where citizens can go to follow the money, and that money can be tracked easily with searches by ZIP code or county, a goal that appears to be met by the new website.
Information can be sorted by county, project type, keywords and administering agencies. Information provided on each approved project includes the recipient of the I-JOBS funds, the name and location of the project, the amount of funding, the total cost of the project, and the expected completion date.
The information can be viewed in a list or on an interactive map.
“I-JOBS is for all of Iowa, and this new online tool shows where funds are being committed and how they are supporting local projects,” Culver said in a statement.
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