Closures of wood and metal shops have dramatically reduced the opportunities for Anamosa offenders to participate in apprenticeships, shown to reduce recidivism and improve an ex-offender’s likelihood of getting a job on the outside.
Mitchell Stites got 2,200 hours of hair cutting experience as a barber in the Iowa Department of Corrections, using clippers -- no scissors or straight-edges allowed -- to do bald fades and trims to make the men incarcerated with him at Fort Dodge look and feel good.
Last year, the Iowa Department of Corrections and NewBoCo, in Cedar Rapids, started a coding program for women at the prison, funded by a $175,000 grant from the Google Impact Challenge. The pilot project is modeled after NewBoCo’s Delta V program, a 20-week boot camp where individuals with no technical background become Full Stack JavaScript developers.
Jack Whitver: ‘Wealthy Iowans work, too’
On Iowa Politics is a weekly news and analysis podcast that aims to re-create the kinds of conversations that happen when you get political reporters from across Iowa together after the day's deadlines have been met.
Iowa Senate Republicans all voted to reject the first set of proposed maps that would redraw statehouse and Congressional boundaries for the next 10 years. All Senate Democrats voted to approve the maps.
The key takeaway from their meeting with local election officials was the checks and balances in election operations, including the 40-step process of checking each voting machine before it goes into a polling place and in counting ballots.
While senators are hearing concerns from their constituents over mask mandates and education-related topics, the Senate GOP leader said he expects this week’s special session will be confined to consideration of the proposed redistricting maps only and likely be completed in a day.
Lawmakers will convene Tuesday at the Capitol for a special session of the Iowa Legislature where they will consider the first round of proposed new election boundary maps for the redistricting process.
66 projects across 27 counties have been awarded funds from the state’s Derecho Community Forestry Grant Program to purchase and plant trees to replace those that were lost when hurricane-force winds up to 140 mph whipped across the state Aug 10, 2021.
But legislative Democrats have pressed for more state investments in K-12 education, regent universities, water quality, pandemic recovery and other perceived needs rather than stockpiling money for more tax cuts.
Robert Gast, a Fort Dodge native, has been named the state court administrator for the Iowa Judicial Branch.
Political considerations — such as whether current lawmakers would have to square off against each other in the next election — should not influence state lawmakers’ votes on proposed new political boundaries in Iowa, Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley said Friday.
DES MOINES – State officials said Friday they’ve caught up with applications for rental and utility assistance and are now working on making sure Iowans know the federal help is available.
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