Senator Encourages Iowans to Tune-in, Ask Questions

WASHINGTON - Senator Chuck Grassley today announced that his monthly call-in show will air live on Wednesday, February 24, from 6:30-7 p.m. (Central Time) on television stations across Iowa.

"Ask Your Senator" will be broadcast from Washington, D.C. and can be seen live in communities served by Mediacom throughout Iowa. The program also airs live in Spencer on channels 22 & 3 and in Sioux City on channel 10.

"This program provides for the two-way dialogue required by our system of representative government," Grassley said. "I hope Iowans will tune in and participate."

Grassley said that it's important to hear from constituents to answer questions or address concerns they may have.

•   Iowans can ask questions during the show by calling 800/736-8255.
•   Questions also can be sent to Grassley using Twitter. Simply add @ChuckGrassley to
your twitter message and include your name and location in Iowa.

Grassley also provides taped versions of the show to local cable access channels that aren't able to air the program live. To receive a copy of the program, local cable access providers should contact Grassley's office.

"Ask Your Senator: A Live Town Meeting" will air on the following channels:

Channel 5
Britt, Charles City, Clear Lake, Cresco, Duncan, Elma, Forest City, Garner, Kensett, Leland, Lime Springs, Manly, Mason City, Northwood, Osage, Ventura

Channel 14
Hampton, Rockwell, Sheffield

Channel 22
Ackley, Adel, Agency, Albia, Algona, Alta, Altoona, Amana, Ames, Anamosa, Ankeny, Aplington, Appanoose, Arnolds Park, Asbury, Atalissa, Atlantic, Audubon, Avoca, Bancroft, Barnum, Beacon, Beaman, Bedford, Belle Plaine, Belmond, Bertram, Bettendorf, Bloomfield, Blue Grass, Bondurant, Boone, Booneville, Buena Vista, Buffalo, Buffalo-Center, Burlington, Burt, Bussey, Calhoun, Calmar, Camanche, Carlisle, Carroll, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Centerville, Chariton, Charlotte, Cherokee, Clarinda, Clarion, Clayton, Clinton, Clive, Colfax, Columbus City, Columbus Junction, Conrad, Coralville, Corning, Corydon, Creston, Dakota City, Dallas Center, Dallas, Danville, Davenport, De Soto, Decatur City, Decorah, Deleware City, Denison, Denver, Des Moines, Dewar, Dewitt, Dexter, Dike, Dubuque, Durant, Dyersville, Dysart, Eagle Grove, Earlham, Eddyville, Edgewood, Eldon, Eldora, Eldridge, Elgin, Elk Run Heights, Elkader, Emmetsburg, Epworth, Essex, Estherville, Evansdale, Fairbank, Fairfax, Fairfield, Farley, Fayette, Fort Dodge, Fort Madison, Fredericksburg, Fredonia, Ft. Atkinson, Garnavillo, Garwin, Gilbertville, Gilmore City, Gladbrook, Glenwood, Glidden, Goose Lake, Granger, Green Mountain, Greenfield, Grimes, Grinnell, Grundy Center, Guttenberg, Hamilton, Hardin, Harlan, Harper's Ferry, Harris, Hartford, Hazleton, Hiawatha, Hills, Hudson, Humboldt, Huxley, Independence, Indianola, Iowa Army Munitions, Iowa City, Iowa Falls, Janesville, Johnson, Johnston, Kalona, Kellerton, Keokuk, Keota, Knoxville, Kossuth, Lake City, Lake Park, Lakeside, Lambs Grove, Lamoni, Lansing, Laporte, Laurens, Le Claire, Le Grand, Leon, Lisbon, Lone Tree, Long Grove, Lovilia, Low Moor, Lynnville, Madrid, Manchester, Manson, Maquoketa, Marengo, Marion, Marquette, Marshalltown, Maynard, McCausland, McGregor, Melcher, Middletown, Miles, Mills County, Mitchellville, Monroe, Monticello, Montrose, Morning Sun, Mount Joy, Mt. Ayr, Mt. Pleasant, Mt. Vernon, Nevada, New Albin, New Hampton, New Hartford, New London, New Sharon, Newhall, Newton, North English, North Liberty, Norwalk, Norway, Oelwein, Okaboji, Orleans, Osceola, Oskaloosa, Ossian, Ottumwa, Oxford Junction, Oxford, Panorama Park, Park View, Parkersburg, Pella, Perry, Pleasant Hill, Pleasant Valley, Pleasantville, Pocahontas, Polk City, Prairie City, Preston, Princeton, Randall, Raymond, Red Oak, Redfield, Reinbeck, Riverdale, Riverside, Rockwell City, Sabula, Sac City, Sageville, Sheldahl, Shell Rock, Shenandoah, Shueyville, Sigourney, Slater, Solon, Spillville, Spirit Lake, Storm Lake, Story City, Strawberry Point, Stuart, Sully, Sumner, Swea City, Swisher, Tama, Tiffin, Tipton, Toddville, Toledo, Traer, University Heights, University Park, Urbandale, Van Meter, Villisca, Vinton, West Okaboji, Wahpeton, Walcott, Washburn, Washington, Waterloo, Waukee, Waukon Junction, Waukon, Waverly, Wellman, West Branch, West Burlington, West Des Moines, West Liberty, West Point, West Union, Westwood, What Cheer, Williamsburg, Windsor Heights, Winterset, Woodburn, Woodward

Rock Island, Ill. -Dr. Jeff Abernathy, vice president of academic affairs and dean of Augustana College, has accepted a new position as President of Alma College in Alma, Michigan. His appointment will begin Ju1y 1, 2010.

"I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to lead Alma at this remarkable moment for higher education," said Abernathy. "The Alma vision for liberal education has engaged students from across the country since the nineteenth century, and it is a great honor to be called to their presidency."

Abernathy has served as vice president and professor in the English department at Augustana since 2004. He led the development of a new consortium of colleges, the Midwest Alliance for Learning in the Liberal Arts, which includes Alma, Augustana and five other Phi Beta Kappa liberal arts colleges across the Midwest. Abernathy's work on the academic component of the college's strategic plan, Authentically Augustana: A Plan for a Premier Liberal Arts College, led to accomplishments including:

· hiring five dozen new faculty as the size of the full-time faculty grew by 26 percent;

· implementing Senior Inquiry, a capstone project which students in nearly all majors create and complete in partnership with a faculty mentor;

· partnering with colleagues to develop Augie Choice, an innovative new program supporting experiential learning opportunities?such as international study, collaborative research and internships?for all students.

"I am very grateful to Jeff for his leadership at Augustana College, especially demonstrated by working with faculty to improve the learning experiences of our students," said Augustana College President Steve Bahls. "This has served to advance Augustana's standing as a national liberal arts college, and Jeff's selection as president of a selective college like Alma is a gratifying sign that colleges around the country are recognizing Augustana's strengths."

A native of Richmond, Virginia, Abernathy graduated from Longwood College in 1985. He earned the Ph.D. in American literature from the University of Florida. Before coming to Augustana, he served as vice president of academic affairs and dean of West Virginia Wesleyan College, and as a faculty member in English and associate dean at Illinois College. He also serves as a higher education expert through local and national media, including writing a column on academic issues for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Abernathy is married to Rebecca Wee, a poet and associate professor of English at Augustana. They are the parents of a six-year-old son, Rohan, and 18-month-old daughter, Maren.

For additional information or questions, contact Kamy Beattie, director of public relations at kamybeattie@augustana.edu or (309) 794-7721.

About Augustana: Founded in 1860 and situated on a 115-acre campus near the Mississippi River, Augustana College is a private, liberal arts institution affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The college enrolls nearly 2,500 students from diverse geographic, social, ethnic and religious backgrounds and offers more than 60 majors and areas of study. Augustana employs 226 faculty and has a student-faculty ratio of 11:1. Augustana continues to do what it has always done: challenge and prepare students for lives of leadership and service in our complex, ever-changing world.

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Chicago, January 26, 2010 ? A report released today shows Illinois has made dramatic improvements in the website designed to disseminate information about their share of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), while other states have failed to make vital information available.

This is the finding of Show Us the Stimulus (Again), a report released today by the Illinois Public Interest Research Group (Illinois PIRG) and produced by Good Jobs First, a non-profit research center based in Washington, DC. The report updates a similar study published last July.

"The state of Illinois has turned it around. Last summer we were a national embarrassment when it came to transparent stimulus spending," said Brian Imus of Illinois PIRG. "Now we are a national leader. Transparency in government is an important step in restoring the public's confidence in Illinois government."

The full text of the report as well as the appendix for Illinois and other states can be found at www.goodjobsfirst.org/stimulusweb.cfm.

"Some states are making great strides in fulfilling President Obama's promise that the Recovery Act would be carried out with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability," said Good Jobs First executive director Greg LeRoy. "Led by Maryland, which again receives the highest score, these states' ARRA websites do a good job in helping taxpayers understand and evaluate the role of the Recovery Act in job creation and state fiscal relief."

The study examines the quality and quantity of disclosure by official state websites on the many different ways that more than $200 billion in ARRA funding is flowing through state governments to communities, organizations and individuals. It examines the availability of information on spending programs as well as specific grants and contracts including data relating to jobs and the geographic distribution of spending within states. Using seven main criteria, each state was graded on a scale of 0 to 100. Illinois received a score of 69 and ranked 7th nationally.

The states scoring highest for transparency of stimulus funds in the new report are: Maryland (87), Kentucky (85), Connecticut (80), Colorado (72), Minnesota (72), Wisconsin (72), California (69), Illinois (69), Oregon (67), Massachusetts (65), Georgia (64), West Virginia (64), New Mexico (62), New York (62), Pennsylvania (62), Montana (61) and Arkansas (60).

At the other end, the ten states with the least adequate information on ARRA programs and specific projects, starting from the worst scoring, are: North Dakota (5), District of Columbia (6), Missouri (10), Alaska (13), Vermont (13), Louisiana (16), Mississippi (17), Idaho (18), Oklahoma (18), Texas (18) and South Carolina (19).

Although changes in methodology make exact comparisons impossible, some states improved greatly since a similar ranking in July. Kentucky soared from 47th place to 2nd; Illinois jumped from 50th to 7th; Minnesota climbed from 34th to 4th and Utah rose from 50th to 24th place.

"We are impressed by 'Cinderella' states such as Kentucky and Illinois, which were ranked at the bottom in our previous assessment but broke into the top tier in the new ranking," said Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First and principal author of both reports. "Numerous others have also improved their sites and are effectively incorporating the data states are helping to collect for the federal government's Recovery.gov website. The state sites and Recovery.gov both have vital roles to play in helping the public evaluate the Recovery Act's performance."

Here are highlights of specific findings:

• Most states do a good job of providing information on the composition of their ARRA spending, both in broad program categories (energy, housing, transportation, etc.) and in narrower ones. Only the District of Columbia provides no program allocation information at all.

• Geographic breakdowns (by county or locality) are less common than summaries of spending by program category. Twenty-seven states provide geographic information, often with interactive maps, including Illinois.

• Only three states?Kentucky, Maryland and Wisconsin?provide side-by-side comparison of the geographic distribution of spending with patterns of economic distress or need within the state.

• Besides overall spending amounts, state residents can see where individual ARRA projects such as the repaving of a road or repair of a school building are taking place. More than half the states (28) now have some kind of project mapping feature on their ARRA site, including Illinois.

• Via maps or otherwise, Illinois was among 41 states in providing one or more of the following types of detail on projects funded through ARRA grants and contracts: description, dollar amount, recipient name, completion status, and the full text of contracts or grant awards. Four states?Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts and New Hampshire?included all these elements.

• Ten states have no information about actual job creation on their websites: Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina and the District of Columbia. By contrast, 16 states list jobs data on individual projects as well as totals by program area and for the state as a whole.

• Only five states?Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi and New Hampshire?provide the full texts of at least some ARRA contract awards.

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January 20, 2010

City Manager, John Phillips announced today that he has asked Police Chief John Wright to continue serving as Police Chief for up to three additional months while the search for his replacement is underway. Phillips said, "Chief Wright has graciously agreed to extend the date of his retirement for up to three additional months".

Chief Wright announced his retirement late last year with an effective date of January 29th, 2010. He would now extend the date through April 30th, 2010 or earlier if his replacement can begin before that date.

Phillips said asking Chief Wright to continue to serve was his first preference, due to the number of projects and issues the City and the department currently face. These include the 2010- 2011 City budget, negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police and Command Officers, Safer Community Task Force and review and discussion of downtown security issues.

Chief Wright said, "I have had a wonderful career with the Rock Island Police Department and if I can help out by staying a little longer, I am glad to do it".

Phillips further announced an online survey on the City's website that seeks the views of citizens on the most important characteristics, skills and experience for the City's next Police Chief. The survey can be accessed on the City of Rock Island's website, www.rigov.org.