Lonnie Gamble, an assistant professor of sustainable living at Maharishi University of Management, demonstrates how an old satellite dish was converted to provide solar heat for toasting foods. (Photo by Beth Dalbey)

Cypress Villages, a 145-acre subdivision taking shape on organically-certified land north of Fairfield, aims to be Iowa’s first community to be completely LEED-Platinum — the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest designation.

The low-powered radio station KRUU-FM is believed to be the only one in the country to use solar energy to power its broadcast booth and signal.

And Fairfiled Mayor Ed Malloy is listed alongside big-city counterparts New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels on a list of the 15 greenest mayors in the United States compiled by the Grist, a Seattle-based online provider of environmental news.

So, building a sustainable future may not seem like a big leap in a small city where living “off the grid” rates not even a raised eyebrow. But a strategic plan to institutionalize sustainable living is “blazing a trail” for other small Iowa cities, said Brian Crowe, a program manager for the Iowa Power Fund.

Fairfield, population 9,500, received an $80,000 Power Fund grant to develop its Go-Green Strategic Plan, which sets forth a broad vision of sustainability upheld by solid goals, aims and objectives its architects think will significantly lighten the city’s carbon footprint.

Impressed by a cultural predisposition to sustainable living in Fairfield, Crowe and the Power Fund board thought Fairfield could serve as a model for other cities of similar size. “There’s really no roadmap at this point,” Crowe said.

Easily duplicated strengths in Fairfield’s plan include methods to establish both baselines in areas such as carbon impact and criteria to measure success, he said. “It’s hard to manage what you don’t measure, and I was pleased to see they are looking at that.”

Crowe thinks a community-by-community response to climate change offers Iowa its best chance to become a national leader in sustainability. “If progress can be measured and quantified, and there is someone on the ground to make sure the program is implemented, it could mean a great deal for Iowa,” he said. “For the things we’re good in — biofuels development and wind development — we’re certainly among the leaders in the nation, But we’ve certainly got a long way to go when you look at energy efficiency as a whole, because a lot of the low-hanging-fruit work has been done.”

‘Big-time accountability’

The sweeping plan addressing environmental, economic and social needs envisions, among other things, wind projects, a local foods system supplying as much as 40 percent of Fairfield’s produce needs, and an already vibrant entrepreneurial spirit burgeoning with new business growth to support green technologies and services.

Support for the plan is broad and those committing to it do so strongly, said Malloy, the sparkplug behind the initiative and Fairfield’s mayor since 2001. For example, he said, the Dexter Corp., a washing machine factory with a foundry operation, offers a $1,000 cash incentive to employees purchasing hybrid vehicles. But he acknowledges that not everyone in the city believes that human activity is a contributing factor to climate change, or that humans can mitigate their influence, meaning the city’s sustainability council faces an ongoing educational hurdle.

“The focus from the beginning has been on how we can create a culture where we voluntarily do the right thing in terms of managing our resources, capturing their economic benefits and leveraging them in local commerce, in particular, foods, where we’re burning a lot of fuel to get it here, and recycling,” he said. “The bigger vision is how we build and design the community going into the future, whether in designing buildings or managing our natural resources in a way that’s more responsible.”

Scott Timm, Fairfield’s community sustainability director, who was hired in a partnership between the city and Iowa State University Extension Service, said “big-time accountability” makes the difference between a feel-good set of values and a plan with teeth.

Businesses and institutions pledging to implement the plan run the gamut from already sustainable projects like Gamble’s Abundance Eco Village to emissions-belching factories, and include elected councils and boards, schools and health-care institutions, cultural organizations, service industries and retail businesses. They’ve signed off on what they’ll do and when they’ll do it, Timm said.

Plan architects also got creative — and practical, For example, an invitation to join the new Green Business Council, made up of the town’s top CEOs, doesn’t come with an expectation for dues, but rather that the business will invest that money in sustainable practices.

Timm said Fairfield’s methodology — holding community conversations facilitated by the Institute for Decision Making at the University of Northern Iowa and involving every corner of the community — is a valuable lesson for other cities with an eye on sustainability.

“There are common themes almost everyone can agree on,” he said. “We’re not asking everybody to go off the grid, we’re just looking for ways to tighten things up, promote healthier ways of living and conserving resources. It’s not radical New Age hippie stuff, but values everybody can buy into.”

The sustainability council is working with the Iowa Interfaith Power & Light Group (Iowa IPL), which offers a faith-based response to climate change. The three-year-old organization brings together the voices of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other faith communities arguing that environmental stewardship is a spiritual concern.

It’s a smart bit of strategy, Timm said, because “if the religious communities don’t get behind this movement, we are in serious trouble.”

By following the plan relating to energy audits of government-owned buildings and schools, Timm said it’s realistic to expect Fairfield can not only offset a proposed 7 percent utility increase, but also achieve deep. Gas and electricity costs for city-owned facilities run about $500,000 annually, and saving just 30 percent of that — a realistic goal, the plan’s architects say — amounts to at least one salary for a city employee, an all important consideration during a sour economy.

“That’s the low-hanging fruit,” Timm said.

Another thing Fairfield did correctly was tap into funding streams, like the Iowa Power Fund, a state program supporting energy innovation and independence.

“If you can really work with your local city government and the utility companies and look into where there are funding options — state or federal — you can get some amazing projects moving,” Timm said. “There is some serious funding out there.”

Changing behaviors

Dubuque Sustainability Coordinator Cori Burbach said Fairfield’s strides help guide similar efforts in hers and other Iowa cities. She took part in a sustainable communities workshop Timm hosted last fall and was impressed by intricacies in Fairfield’s plan. “I was really impressed with the local foods program, and the involvement of the local school district and university,” Burbach said. “Getting local foods into the schools is really exciting.”

Both the Fairfield Community School District and Maharishi University of Management also have developed educational curricula around the principles of sustainability. The university offers what officials say is the country’s first four-year bachelor of science degree in sustainable living with some four dozen courses. Energy independence pioneer Gamble, an assistant professor for the new department, said the breadth of courses epitomize the overarching goals of Fairfield’s sustainability goals.

“The sustainable department has morphed from a biology department with six students to a sustainable living department with 90 fulltime students,” he said. “Students are involved in innovative enterprises, like a 1,000-gallon-per-day capacity biodiesel cooperative, and wind generator and solar projects.”

The building housing the department was slated for demolition, but students convinced university higher-ups to leave it standing and allow them to refurbish it using green technology.

Timm said the schools’ efforts go a long way toward institutionalizing sustainable living in Fairfield.

“My impression is that Fairfield is a community of people who want to do good things,” said Timm, whose first full day as a Fairfield resident coincided with a Labor Day concert by the Beach Boys, where Mayor Malloy proclaimed bandleader and sometime Fairfield resident Mike Love “energy czar for a day.”

“We’re finding that people want to get plugged in, and that they aren’t afraid to try something new and to find ways to change their behavior,” he said. “That’s the real key, looking at ways to change behavior.”

Beth Dalbey edited the Fairfield Ledger from 1996 to 2001. An award-winning journalist, she has also edited newspapers in Adel and Des Moines.

If no candidate gets 35 percent, the party has to hold a convention to choose a nominee, and that’s a realistic possibility in one Iowa congressional race.The prospect of a convention was a hot topic in Democratic circles in early 2006, and Ed Fallon’s gubernatorial campaign made a big effort to elect delegates at precinct caucuses and county conventions. But the convention talk cooled after Patty Judge left the race to form a ticket with eventual nominee Chet Culver, who won a four-way race (don’t forget Sal Mohamed) with 39.1 percent.

Even in a three-way race, a convention is a possibility if the math breaks just right. The Republicans came within 1 percent of a statewide convention for governor in 2002, when the three candidates all bunched up in the 30 percentile. Doug Gross emerged as the nominee, with only 35.6 percent.

That same year, Republicans actually went to a convention for the 5th Congressional District. Four strong candidates competed in the brand-new, solidly Republican district, and they landed between 21 and 31 percent each. Steve King landed at the top of that heap, and then turned that lead into a convention win. The rest is history.

Who attends a convention depends on what level of office is involved. For legislative seats, it’s county central committee members, with votes weighted by the size and party strength of each precinct. County offices are nominated by a county convention, made up of the precinct delegates elected at the Jan. 3 caucuses. Congressional district and state conventions are made up of delegates elected at the March county conventions.

The likeliest prospect for a convention is the Democratic race in the 4th Congressional District, with four candidates seeking the nomination. Republicans have two major three-candidate races: the U.S. Senate race and the 2nd Congressional District.

Prospects also exist for conventions in local contests. The definition of percentage is less than straightforward in elections for more than one seat, such as at-large county supervisor contests. To determine the 35 percent threshold in these races, the Code of Iowa specifies a “percentage of votes” method. To get at this number add up all the votes cast for all the candidates, including write-ins. Then divide it by the number of seats available.

For example, look at the 2004 Democratic supervisor race in Johnson County. Eight candidates were running for three seats, and a total of 20,905 votes were cast. Divide that by three, and the baseline for calculating percentage is 6,969.

Johnson County Supervisors, 2004 Democratic Primary	votes	percentage of votes	percentage of voters	TV Percentage
Terrence Neuzil	5,060	72.6%	54.4%	24.2%
Pat Harney	4,627	66.4%	49.7%	22.1%
Rod Sullivan	3,187	45.7%	34.3%	15.2%
Mike O’Donnell	3,060	43.9%	32.9%	14.6%
Rick Dvorak	1,998	28.7%	21.5%	9.6%
John Schneider	1,339	19.2%	14.4%	6.4%
Julie Gilmere	1,134	16.3%	12.2%	5.4%
James Knapp	446	6.4%	4.8%	2.1%
write in	54	0.8%	0.6%	0.3%

This formula does not factor in the common dynamic of under-voting or “bullet voting,” in which supporters of one candidate don’t use all their votes in a vote for two or vote for three race. Instead, bullet voters vote only for their favorite candidate. You can’t use both, or all three, of your votes on that candidate, but you don’t have to use all of your votes. It’s a common campaign tactic, but one that’s usually done sotto voce so as not to alienate supporters of other candidates. If you want to crunch some math, add up the total votes cast for all candidates plus write-ins, then divide it by the number of voters. This will give you a “votes per candidate” number, illustrating how many people cast some sort of bullet vote. In our 2004 sample race, the 20,905 votes were cast by 9,305 voters, meaning the average voter only cast 2.25 votes for supervisor out of a possible three.

Calculating percentage of voters, by dividing the candidate’s results by the total number of voters, produces a lower percentage but provides a more reliable assessment of how many people supported a candidate. Another common, misleading method in a vote in a two-or-three race is to add up all the votes and divide each candidate’s vote by the grand total. This is often seen on local TV and produces seeming paradoxes like candidates winning with 17 percent.

Another seeming paradox happens in a race where four candidates are competing for three seats. It’s possible for a candidate to win support from a majority of voters, yet finish in last place, as in this 2001 Coralville contest. Over half of the voters supported Bream, yet he drew the least support and lost.

Coralville City Council, 2001	votes	percentage of votes	percentage of voters	TV Percentage
Henry Herwig	744	80.0%	70.4%	26.7%
Dave Jacoby	732	78.7%	69.3%	26.2%
Tom Gill	682	73.3%	64.5%	24.5%
Bob Bream	614	66.0%	58.1%	22.0%
write in	17	1.8%	1.6%	0.6%

]]> http://iowaindependent.com/2383/primaries-by-the-percentages/feed 0 http://iowaindependent.com/2197/commentary-nagles-legacy-nagles-loss http://iowaindependent.com/2197/commentary-nagles-legacy-nagles-loss#comments Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:34:34 +0000 John Deeth http://iowaindependent.com/2197/commentary-nagles-legacy-nagles-loss Every driver along the Avenue of the Saints should pause while passing through Waterloo and think about the man who shepherded that highway through Congress during an all-too-short six-year tenure.

Waterloo was the last city of its size connected to the Interstate. In large part that was because the area’s 26-year congressman (1949-74) H.R. Gross was a Republican so conservative that he voted against virtually every bill that spent money. To heck with you, then, said his colleagues, and the pork did not flow to Waterloo.

Dave Nagle, who today is in the headlines for sadder reasons, was the first Democrat to represent Waterloo’s congressional district, then numbered the 3rd, since the New Deal when he won in 1986.Nagle had already made his mark on the national scene as Iowa Democratic Party chair during the 1984 caucuses. It was really the first time the Democratic campaign in Iowa had been front and center in the national press; Jimmy Carter flew under the radar in 1976, and ran a phantom Rose Garden campaign against Ted Kennedy in 1980.  But in 1984 the full media circus came to town, and Nagle was the state party’s face to the nation.

Nagle got really lucky with the map; Iowa’s non-partisan redistricting system had placed heavily Democratic Johnson County in with Waterloo. And that’s how I got mixed up with Dave Nagle in the first place, in my first journalism career in public radio in the early 1990s. Nagle was a great source, who sometimes called me up, himself, out of the blue, leaving me scrambling for tape.

But that map which helped Dave Nagle so much in 1986, and had him running unopposed by 1990, was his undoing in 1992. Iowa hemorrhaged population in the 1980s and lost a seat in the House.  The cold calculations of the map put Nagle together with cartoonish freshman Jim Nussle, who was best known at the time for wearing a paper bag on his head on the House floor.

Despite the retrospective memory that 1992 was a banner Democratic year, it really wasn’t in Iowa, except for Bill Clinton. A fair share of the Ross Perot vote went Republican the rest of the way down the ballot, there were several losses both big and close, and Nagle lost to Nussle by one percent.

Jim Nussle went on to chair the House Budget Committee and help build a record deficit, work he is now continuing in the Bush Administration. Dave Nagle came home to Waterloo.  In his post-Congressional career, Nagle has been the very definition of an

The Iowa Professional Fire Fighters State Convention was to host presidential hopefuls Tuesday and Wednesday. Gov. Bill Richarson, Sen. Barack Obama, former Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Chris Dodd and Sen. Hillary Clinton confirmed they would be in attendance. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden was also scheduled to appear and represent his father, Sen. Joe Biden. There was also speculation that former President Bill Clinton would appear beside his wife for the event.

The firefighters decided to postpone this portion of their convention when it was learned the event conflicted with debate in the U.S. Senate on the Employee Free Choice Act. This piece of legislation is considered to be one of the highest priorities for labor this year. Debate on the bill began last week, and a cloture vote is expected this week.

The House version was passed by a wide margin in March. In the Senate, however, much more resistance is expected.

A rescheduling date is not known at this time. It is anticipated that non-senatorial hopefuls — Gov. Richardson, A.G. Biden and former Sen. Edwards — will address the convention as scheduled.

Ottumwa was a community swelling with pride at a send-off ceremony Sunday for approximately 120 soldiers in the Iowa National Guard 833rd Engineer Company.

The Hellyer Student Life Center gymnasium at Indian Hills Community College was filled with soldiers and their families and friends, along with others from the community just there to show their support.

A sidewalk was lined with flags from the gymnasium all the way to the buses that would take the soldiers to Fort McCoy, Wis., where they will prepare to be deployed for service in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Most of the people in attendance, both soldiers and civilians, have been through this emotional experience before.

This group of soldiers, formerly called Company B of the 224th Engineering Battalion, served a tour of duty in Iraq from October 2004 through December, 2005. Company B, from Ottumwa and the rural areas and nearby towns of southeast Iowa, became well-known for being very good at what they do.

Iowa National Guard Public Affairs Officer Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood said the 833rd Engineer Company's responsibility involves "providing greater mobility for U.S. forces and also countering some of the things that opposing forces do to slow down or to stop our soldiers." Hapgood said that the soldiers of the 833rd Company "are very experienced with building things, with tearing down things, with using explosives, and with direct combat support for units in a combat situation. So they really have a great variety of skills that they can do very ably, and they're ready to go do their mission."

One of the things they do best is find and diffuse improvised explosive devices. As noted by Des Moines Register columnist John Carlson, this company of soldiers has proven its abilities and been honored for it by high-level commanders.

Among those soldiers today was Staff Sgt. Tim Raskie, a communications specialist for the unit. His duties during the 2004-2005 tour in Iraq involved taking care of all of the radios and other communication systems used by the 833rd Engineer Company, a task he will continue when they arrive in Iraq for their second tour of duty.

Raskie is a resident of Albia, where he is raising two kids with his wife, Ruth. His son Brian and his daughter Leah are students at Albia Community Schools, and Ruth is a librarian at the Carnegie-Evans Public Library in Albia. In an emotional moment after the ceremony, the kids hugged their father as the other soldiers began making their way toward the buses waiting outside.

Another soldier in the company is Sgt. Nathan Chambers. He deployed today for his third tour of duty in the War on Terrorism.

His father, Brian Chambers of Eddyville, said Sgt. Chambers first served a tour of duty in Afghanistan with another National Guard unit.
After returning from Afghanistan, he later joined this Ottumwa unit and served in the previous deployment in 2004-2005.

Sgt. Chambers was just recently married in March, and living in Pella with his new bride, Dawn.

The send-off ceremony included a speech by Ottumwa Mayor Dale Uehling, who presented the company with an Iowa flag the soldiers will take with them to Iraq.

Rep. Dave Loebsack, who is a member of the U.S. House Armed Services committee, thanked the soldiers for their service and offered his gratitude to the soldiers' families.

As the company exited the gymnasium to board the buses, the local American Legion post conducted a 21-gun salute.

The buses carrying the soldiers were escorted out of town by the sirens and flashing lights of Ottumwa fire trucks, ambulances and police vehicles.