Factors such as same-sex couple households per capita, statewide marriage equality, the number of gay elected officials and “Gay films in the Netflix favorites” were taken into consideration to determine each city’s rank. Atlanta and Burlington, Vt., ranked ahead of Iowa City.

3. Iowa City
The no-nonsense swing state city is infused with intellectual curiosity. The state supreme court ruling in favor of marriage equality is but one moment in a long history of progressive decisions. Home of the famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a thriving arts community, this is where Brokeback Mountain’s Ennis and Jack would have bought a house and adopted kids, in the alternate ending of that romance.

Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, right, visits with Cedar Rapids flood victims on the one year anniversary of the massive 2008 floods (Iowa Independent file photo).

However, while the figure may be massive it remains less than a third of the $3.6 billion in disaster recovery funds that have been promised to Iowa.

While more than 20 individual funding streams exist, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s funds have been the most utilized by Iowans. The agency’s Other Needs Assistance (ONA) funds, jointly administered by FEMA and the Iowa Department of Human Services for victims immediately following a disaster, has spent all but roughly $1 million of the $136.5 million allocated to Iowa.

More than $750 million of the total disaster recovery funds promised to Iowa remains unallocated or earmarked for specific projects or entities.

State officials involved in recovery efforts are to quick to point out that such a massive recovery will take time, and that especially mitigation projects need to be methodical and thoughtful in order to prevent future disasters. They also point to the fact that Iowa remains ahead of other natural disaster sites in the nation in terms of receiving and distributing recovery funds.

Much of the recovery effort in Iowa centers in northeastern Linn and Johnson counties, where Cedar Rapids and Iowa City were both hard-hit by June 2008 floods. Local officials in Cedar Rapids, who were displaced from their facilities by the flood, continue to debate and accept public comment regarding the future of certain structures. Until plans such as those are closer to reality, it is difficult for the Rebuild Iowa Office or other state and federal agencies to allocate funds to the projects.

According to figures from the Rebuild Iowa Office, more than 39,800 Iowans have registered with FEMA, and more than 35,000 Iowans have visited disaster recovery centers throughout the state. In addition to the 85 Iowa counties eligible for federal assistance, 77 counties are also eligible for state and public assistance.

A detailed look at the various funding streams, the amounts that have been promised/allocated to Iowa, what’s been approved for local use and the totals spent as of Dec. 4 are in the chart below:

The Iowa Legislature Web site also makes a document available for download with estimated disaster recovery funding by county.

The Register could not confirm the FBI informant’s identity, but the paper quotes activists who say that they believe it was a man named “Jason.” I can confirm now that the man suspected by activists of informing to the FBI is Jason Munford, who gave a fairly sincere-sounding presentation early last year at the University of Iowa about becoming a conscientious objector.

The Iowa Independent’s Adam Burke interviewed Munford on camera at the time:

In January of this year, Munford contacted the Iowa Independent via a YouTube message. Citing threats that he considered serious, he asked us to take down the video. (We declined.) Munford also firmly denied the allegations that he was an FBI informant:

A few months ago, I was falsely accused of giving sensitive information from an anarchist group to the FBI, that resulted in charges against members. Because of the threats I received and such due to those claims, I’ve been forced to move and I’m changing my name and taking other steps to protect myself. In the comments on the video from my talk, a lot of people have reconnected the claims against me to a video record of my appearance.

In the Register’s story, activists say that Munford admitted to them that he had informed to the FBI — a fact that the paper could not confirm. Here’s the relevant reporting from that story:

Political activists [Robert "Ajax"] Ehl and [David] Goodner said they believe they know the identity of the FBI informant who spied on the Iowa City protesters.

They say it was a young man from Michigan named “Jason” who claimed he was a U.S. military conscientious objector. He told people he had been discharged from the Air Force after he objected to being deployed to Iraq.

The man hung out with Iowa City activists for months, sharing beers and meals with them while expressing solidarity with their political beliefs.

Goodner and Ehl said “Jason” later admitted that he provided information to the FBI in exchange for money.

“It is my understanding that he just took money because he was unemployed,” Ehl said.

Looking back, the surveillance in Iowa City may have begun as early as the fall of 2007, Goodner said. He and three others from Iowa City traveled to St. Paul for a meeting with the RNC Welcoming Committee. A few weeks later, “Jason” started coming to their meetings in Iowa City.

If Munford was an informant, it remains unclear whether information he provided led to arrests or disrupted protests. The Iowa City activists told the Register that only one member of their group had been arrested in connection with protests in St. Paul, and that the charges against that person were subsequently dropped.

“If there ever was a time that the election of a president could jump start America’s flat-lining moral standing in the world, it would be the election of Barack Obama on Tuesday,” writes the editorial board. “Moreover, Obama has proven to be a smart enough politician that he recognizes and will be able to make the best use of that opportunity.”

“If only candidate McCain from 2000 — the one who really did take on the leaders of his party when they were moving in the direction of the policies proposed by George W. Bush — were in charge of a party that has wreaked such havoc on Washington for eight years,” the paper says of the Republican nominee. “But by giving his vice presidential nod to Sarah Palin as a last-ditch attempt to garner hard-core conservative support, McCain has shown undeniably how he controls neither his own campaign nor his own party.”

The only Republican to win endorsement from the Iowa City paper was state Rep. Jeff Kaufmann of Wilton, whose Democratic opponent dropped out of the race but remains on the ballot.

Despite Iowa City’s liberal leanings, the local paper doesn’t always endorse a Democratic sweep. 2006 Republican endorsements included Kaufmann, Jim Leach, and state Sen. Dave Miller, who lost his seat to Becky Schmitz. And in 2004, in a slap in the face to local Democrat Art Small, the Press-Citizen endorsed neither Small nor Republican Chuck Grassley, but instead backed the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate.

The earliest early voters line up at the Johnson County Auditor's office

In Iowa City, Democratic party activists have a traditional, friendly competition for the honor of “first voter.” On Thursday, the first day of in-person early voting, three dozen people lined up at the county auditor’s office before the window opened. The first-in-line winner was Sue Dvorsky of Coralville, an early Obama backer and one of the county’s co-chairs for Obama at caucus time.

Auditor's Office staffer Harry Rueber prepares to give Sue Dvorsky the first in-person ballot as Tom Penne awaits the second.

“Everything we’ve done for the last two years has led us to today and the next forty days,” said Dvorsky. “It’s an astounding thing to have come this far.”

Most of the voters lined up at 8 a.m. had attended a pre-vote rally at Democratic headquarters, three blocks from the auditor’s office. The rally was one of 17 early vote rallies sponsored by the Obama campaign and the Democrats across the state.

But the earliest early voters included some regular, non-campaign folks. “We’re afraid we won’t be back in time,” said Sue Penne, who is taking a trip to Utah with her husband Tom that may last past election day. They eased into the second and third spots in line, ahead of Sue Dvorsky’s husband, state Sen. Bob Dvorsky.

By 11 AM, 65 voters had voted at the Johnson County Auditor’s Office, and another 34 at a satellite voting site at the Iowa City Public Library.

About every 14 months or so, those paydays align, and everybody gets paid. And that’s today. Let us celebrate with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

As Layzie Bone and Krayzie Bone explained, in a middle finger to middle class sensibilities, the “1st Of Tha Month” is the happiest day in the `hood, because everyone gets their welfare checks.

‘Cause it’s the 1st of tha month and now we smokin’, chokin’, rollin’ blunts
And sippin’ on 40 ounces thuggin’ come come we got the blessed rum

Chris Rock called it a “welfare carol” and parodied it: “I wish you a merry welfare and a happy food staaaaamp!”

“1st Of Tha Month” was a big hit back in `95, a year before Bill Clinton signed the welfare reform bill in August 1996. Being poor is, of course, expensive, even on the first of the month. No one writes about this more eloquently that Barbara Ehrenreich, whose new book, This Land is Their Land, re-explores the theme.

In her previous book, Nickled and Dimed, Ehrenreich traveled about the caountry anonymously and tried to survive on minimum wage jobs. She writes:

I chastised a coworker for living in a motel room when it would be so much cheaper to rent an apartment. Her response: Where would she get the first month’s rent and security deposit it takes to pin down an apartment? The lack of that amount of capital —- probably well over $1,000 —- condemned her to paying $40 a night at the Day’s Inn.

August is a tight month for a lot of people in Iowa City, as the rent comes due. In a college town, all the leases simultaneously expire, and everyone plays musical chairs with their apartments. In August, you have to pay a new security deposit before you get the old one back — or should I say IF you get the old one back.

Fortunately, the government comes to the rescue with the sales tax holiday, which also starts today. The tax free weekend was a gimmick passed back when the Republicans ran the legislature. A tax break to help parents shopping at back to school time sounds good. But think about it: would you go racing to the store if they ran an ad that proudly proclaimed, “SIX PERCENT OFF?” (It’s a seven percent solution if you’re in a local option sales tax county.)

You can get 100 percent off on furniture during moving weekend if you have a truck and no shame. The junk, good and bad, piles up on the curb, and the junk crawlers and “curb shoppers” take the best and leave the rest.

There was a total eclipse of the sun today, too, but you probably slept through it and you could only see totality in Greenland, Siberia, or China. As for the U.S., only a tiny bit of a barely partial phase is visible from the extreme northern tip of Maine. And, though the tiny nick out of the edge of the sun wasn’t worth a Lear jet trip, you could have seen it in Nova Scotia.

Two solar eclipses (”Then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun”) were visible from Nova Scotia in the early 1970s. The first eclipse, on March 7, 1970, was visible in the USA, but the second one, on July 10, 1972, was not. Warren Beatty’s mother was born and raised in Nova Scotia.

The next time the payday planets line up, there’s also a three day holiday weekend and a new digit on the decade odometer. Watch out on January 1, 2010: There’s a full moon that night, too.

Residents are also questioning flood management, in particular a temporary coffer dam on the University of Iowa campus that raised flood waters above 1993 levels.

The city and the Idyllwild residents are on the same page: “Council’s instructions are to pursue a full buyout of these properties,” said Iowa City manager Michael Lombardo. But the devil is in the details.

The Idyllwild development, just across the Iowa River from lower City Park, consists of 23 four unit structures. Residents own their units “ from the paint in,” said resident Martha Monick at a Tuesday night meeting. The grounds are owned by a 92 member homeowners association, and each condominium owner is assessed 1/92 of the maintenance.  “You can’t take apart a 92 member association,” said Monick.

The homeowners association has voted in favor of the buyout, and attorneys argue that the vote is binding and no one owner would be able to refuse to sell. But FEMA coordinating officer Bill Vogel said that a buyout would require a voluntary request from each of the 92 owners, a pronouncement that edged the anxiety level in the room up a notch.

The flood plain map also complicates matters. Some of the individual units are in the 100 year flood plain, some are in the 500 year plain, and some straddle the line. “I think, frankly, that the flood plain maps are incorrect,” said Idyllwild resident Charlie Eastham. He said he had suffered a $150,000 loss on a home he purchased for $180,000 four years ago, and without assistance he may face bankruptcy.

John Wagemann, stare hazard mitigation officer, said an entire complex may be eligible for a buyout, even if some individual units would not qualify. “If we spend a dollar, we have to prove it will save more by avoided damages,” he said.

Ultimately, the decision is local. “There is no ‘FEMA buyout’ program,” said Wagemann. “The buyout program is really the city of Iowa City’s program. FEMA provides some of the money, but it is your city’s.”

But FEMA may not provide enough money to buy out all of the damaged properties. “We need to look at the state as a whole,” said Wagemann. “Based on available funding, we have to make some decisions.”

City officials are looking at other streams of money, including Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). “Do we recolor money as CDBG money? If we do that it has less strings attached,” said David Miller,  state Homeland Security administrator. “That’s one of the things we’re struggling with now.”

Wagemann said the entire buyout process could take nine months to a year. Residents, in the meantime, are frustrated.

A particular point of contention was a temporary coffer dam on the University of Iowa campus, which raised flood levels upstream as much as a foot and a half. The 50 or so people at the meeting were shocked when Bill Cappuccio of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said his department had not been aware of the dam until last week. He said normally, such a structure would have been removed.

“We at Idyllwild we received no notification, but the coffer dam put us in a different flood plain because of mitigating circumstances,” said resident Mary Wallace, asking who should have been responsible for notifying residents.

Even as they clean up and consider their next steps, Idyllwild residents want to prevent future flooding. “Build a levee on Normandy. Raise the spillway. Use the Coralville reservoir for what it was intended for –- flood control,” said one resident to applause. “People can recreate elsewhere. Please be proactive.”

John Kerry gets offered a beer bong, September 2006. Photo: Des Moies Register

Olive Court was a popular campaign stop for presidential candidates on the caucus trail. Ron Paul spoke to a rowdy crowd last year, but the most famous event was in 2006, when John Kerry was offered a “beer bong.” Not long after that, Kerry opted out of the 2008 race, but that may have had more to do with his poor poll standing than with the embarrassing picture.

Up to 700 vehicles parked at Olive Court, a short walking or stumbling distance from Kinnick Stadium.

The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that the property will be developed. Olive Court was one of the few unbuilt lots in University Heights, an independent city completely surrounded by Iowa City that is well known for its enthusiastic enforcement of speed limits.

But the old Sutliff Bridge was — past tense, as the damage is probably beyond repair — more than a relic. It was the very symbol of the close-knit town.Sutliff sits in the far northeast corner of Johnson County, where the Cedar River takes a brief cut unto the county. The bridge was built in 1898 and replaced a ferry service that had become impractical due to a sandbar. The modern bridge was completed in 1983, and locals took over maintenance and preservation of the old bridge.

But little is left to preserve now.

“I don’t think they can rebuild it,” says the young waitress at Baxa’s Sutliff Store and Tavern, sad but friendly as another set of gawking outsiders grabs a bite while surveying the town’s loss. It’s not that outsiders aren’t welcome; the bar has many regulars who bike up from Iowa City on weekends and take a mid-ride beer break.

The store sits at the east foot of the old bridge. It’s a turn of the 19th century building, and the former site of the general store. Dollar bills signed by patrons completely wallpaper the ceiling, and the place is full on a Monday night with everyone from children shooting pool to their grandparents.

A framed poem on the wall recaps the history of the old bridge and the construction of the new:

Now fast forward with me please to about nineteen eighty four
because now the iron bridge can’t do its job anymore
That bridge and its wooden planks are old and must go
so they built a new one up river, a quarter mile or so

Now we all know the story about how the old bridge was spared
to be enjoyed by others because somebody else cared…

Clearly this is the de facto community center, with a wide selection of bar food and no one worrying yet about the smoking ban that kicks in next week. One of the few signs of the 21st century is a small notice on the community bulletin board, mostly taken up with word of motorcycle rallies, that mentions the store’s web site, sutliffbridge.com. The site shows the bridge in happier times.

“With so many people suffering such massive personal losses it might sound silly, but it is very difficult to express what the Sutliff Bridge meant to me,” said Rod Sullivan, chair of the county Board of Supervisors. Sullivan grew up on a family farm just east of Sutliff. “I don’t think the loss has really sunken in just yet.”

Memorabilia of the bridge line the walls. A drawing of the bridge in its former glory carefully carved into a moose antler and a certificate noting the bridge’s place on the National Registry of Historic Places have clearly been in place for ages.

The patrons are stoic, chatting about cleanup and rented storage units. But their eyes turn to a new batch of flood pictures taken by a Sutliff child. They show the flood in all its rage, pouring over the wooden plank deck, with debris the size of fully grown trees piling up on the north, upstream side just before the eastern half of the bridge was washed downstream.

The poem on the wall, written for a happier occasion, may now serve an an inadvertent epitaph. Its closing stanza:

And the spirit of the place, well, it always will remain
because seasoned old friendships, time cannot claim
So I hope you will agree, now that my story ends
You must do what it takes to keep old friends… friends.

The more than 250 residents were more than happy with Dave Loebsack (pictured above with neighborhood resident Steve McGuire), offering applause for the congressman’s physical labor sandbagging the neighborhood. Loebsack announced that he had canceled a visit to Iraq and Afghanistan that was scheduled for next month to focus on flood relief. “For some months to come, the district staff and I will be working almost exclusively on this,” he said. “It’s going to be a long process, no doubt about it. I know what I’m doing when I’m back (in the district.) It won’t be sandbagging, but it’ll be cleanup.”

But as questions grew more specific and turned to city officials, the neighbors grew more restless. When can we get back in our homes? Why should rebuild before we know about a buyout? How do we start the process? Some questions were answered, some remained unanswerable as officials tried several variations on “we don’t know yet.”“I’ve tried to do everything I could in Washington to get all the assistance that Iowans deserve,” Loebsack said, praising the bipartisan efforts of Iowa’s four Democrat, three Republican D.C. delegation. “All seven of us have been working in a bipartisan manner. The 2nd District is by far the hardest hit, so my office has been taking the lead in the House.”

“We got the President up to $2.65 billion” for a relief package, said Loebsack, who accompanied President Bush on his Thursday visit to Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. “But we have no idea how much this will cost yet.”

“If we approach this with the same attitude and collective effort we did with the sandbagging, we’re going to be OK,” said Mayor Regenia Bailey.

Dave Wilson, head of Johnson County Emergency Management, said at least 6 million sandbags were deployed in the county. “Not all of them got wet. We were extremely proactive down here and suffered no major loss of infrastructure and no loss of life.”

“This is the first of what I imagine to be several meetings. No decisions have been made about anything,” said McGuire, one of the meeting’s organizers. “I know many of you now by your elevation,” he said. “I’m 651.8,” which wasn’t enough. “People are struggling with where to stay, let alone where to begin.”

The neighborhood has set up its own web site, PVTFloodResponse (that’s Park View Terrace, not “private”. It’s a nicer nickname that the “Mosquito Flats” that some old-timers still call the area.)

Bailey said most mandatory evacuation orders have now been lifted (”Why not all,” one person muttered at the statement) except for a handful of addresses on Normandy Drive. The Peninsula neighborhood, which was evacuated because the only access road was flooded, is now open. The city is offering updates on lifted evacuations on its web site and through press releases, and Bailey offered her personal cell phone number to neighbors whose computers were still sitting in flooded homes.

“Automobile access should be in the next day or two,” said City Manager Mike Lombardo. He was asked, with audience members applauding, why boat access was not allowed as it was in the 1993 flood. Lombardo, only two weeks into the job, couldn’t speak to 1993, but said the 2008 decision was made to keep residents and rescue personnel safe.

While most evacuation orders are lifted, access is by foot only, and an 8:30 p.m. curfew for areas within 100 yards of flood waters is still in effect.

“Don’t be in a hurry to get rid of the sandbags,” says Public Works Director Rick Foss, By Tuesday afternoon, water should drop below the 712 foot level of the Coralville Dam spillway, but Foss reminded residents of the multiple peaks of the 1993 flood.

Foss said the city will eventually pick up sandbags, but there’s not yet a plan to get them moved from the side of homes to the curb. He also said he was unsure about which was a higher priority: removing sandbags or removing damaged contents of homes.

That question was answered, as residents, in unison, shouted “CONTENTS!”

Residents also asked about temporary relief on property taxes, assessments, and utility bills. “It’s minor, but every nickel is going to help all of us,” said one woman.

“Temporary tax relief would take an act of the city council and would have to be consistent with state law,” said Lombardo, and the same would be true of utility rates.

“I doubt that our property values have gone up in the last month,” said one man to applause.

Lombardo said there was no blanket answer yet on rebuilding.

A FEMA representative said that if a buyout were to happen, it would be at the pre-flood market value of homes.

As for rebuilding, City Planner Jeff Davidson advised residents to “Document everything. Photos, receipts.” City staff also advised people with water in their basement to pump it down only a foot at a time, then wait an hour or so between pumping, to make sure water isn’t backing up and to ease structural pressure. The city does not expect to give any homes a “red placard” indicating they are structurally unsafe.

Residents also asked for pumps to be placed on two low spots on Normandy Drive to speed the process, but Foss said that was technically unfeasible. He said some sandbags had been removed to allow drainage.

A FEMA representative said half to three-fourths of the residents have filed by phone already. Residents will get two packets in mail: a white one from FEMA and a brown one from the Small Business Administration. FEMA will also send a representative to look at each applicant’s home.

“Why do we want to rebuild?” asked one resident, seeking the definitive buyout answer that never came. “Should we start rebuilding if we don’t know for sure if we’re going to be bought out?”

While residents seemed to begrudgingly accept answers from city officials, the greatest ire was reserved for the Army Corp of Engineers’ management of the dam. McGuire said there would be a meeting about hydrology, but noted, to sarcastic laughter, “We don’t have a representative from the Corps here.”

“Are we expendable when it comes to a flood?” asked one neighbor, while another muttered, “They raised the water plant, so they don’t care about us anymore.” The old Iowa City water plant was nearly closed in 1993; a new plant is on higher ground.

Loebsack, however, tried to remain positive, offering a toll-free office number (866-914-IOWA) and personal help removing waterlogged carpet despite an aging lower back. “Things are going to be even better than they were before, no doubt about it.”