Iowa Constitution and Rice Field
Rice Field, the site of Byron Rice Public Elementary School, was to be a recipient of the one-cent local option tax passed in 1998. The ruse used to get voters to support that tax was the call to save, among others, Rice Elementary. Shortly after the tax was passed at the election, Byron Rice Public Elementary School was slated for demolition.
Then, private interests employed a plan--or the next phase of their plan--to take public land and develop it for private interests. It involved collusion with the school board and city hall. It involved a web of deceit and flurry of paperwork to latch onto available funding and making public property available for private development.
The 1857 Iowa Constitution Articles VII and VIII directly forbid corporate participation and loaning government credit. This was the result of the failed schemes of riverboats and railroads that emptied public coffers, among others.
Even though the Constitution has been amended many times since 1857, the $250,000 limitation has never been increased.
My point is that somewhere our state and local governments have been corrupted to being fountains of economic development funds for those with the connections to siphon our tax dollars into their own pockets. Getting government money, as cash or assets, into private pockets has been the motivation behind the entire Rice Elementary saga.
Iowa government was created for the protection, benefit, and security of the people (Art. I §2) which translates into roads, police, fire, sewer, water, schools, and administration for those purposes: how we got from where we were supposed to be to the perversion that consumed Rice Elementary, and then Rice Field instead of saving the school is inexplicable given the limitations written into the basic law of the state.
The Des Moines model of government that other cities model themselves after was the result of reforms instituted to fight corruption in Des Moines. (City Hall is constructed with open rooms to get rid of back-room bargaining but it has been remodeled a number of times to 'modernize' it.) The Dillon Rule of government which rigidly limited municipal powers was based upon an 1868 Iowa Supreme Court Decision dealing with Des Moines government corruption, it was 'modernized' by municipal home rule in 1969.
It makes you wonder what the next reform coming out of Des Moines' bad government will be called...
The end of one effort is usually the beginning of another, and we won't realize it until we are riding the swell of change. The Friends of Rice Field didn't realize they were a movement until they were swept up and involved.
People need to get involved... just find the cause! If you don't try to impart change to right a wrong, then you are part of the wrong.
John Anderson
IA Constitution Art VII § 1 Credit not to be loaned "The credit of the State shall not, in any manner, be given or loaned to, or in aid of, any individual, association, or corporation; and the State shall never assume, or become
responsible for, the debts or liabilities of any individual, association, or corporation, unless incurred in time of war for the benefit of the State. "
Limitation. Section 2. The State may contract debts to supply casual deficits or failures in revenues, or to meet expenses not otherwise provided for; but the aggregate amount of such debts, direct and contingent, whether contracted by virtue of one or more acts of the General Assembly, or at different periods of time, shall never exceed the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and the money arising from the creation of such debts, shall be applied to the purpose for which it was obtained, or to repay the debts so contracted, and to no other purpose whatever.
Then, private interests employed a plan--or the next phase of their plan--to take public land and develop it for private interests. It involved collusion with the school board and city hall. It involved a web of deceit and flurry of paperwork to latch onto available funding and making public property available for private development.
The 1857 Iowa Constitution Articles VII and VIII directly forbid corporate participation and loaning government credit. This was the result of the failed schemes of riverboats and railroads that emptied public coffers, among others.
Even though the Constitution has been amended many times since 1857, the $250,000 limitation has never been increased.
My point is that somewhere our state and local governments have been corrupted to being fountains of economic development funds for those with the connections to siphon our tax dollars into their own pockets. Getting government money, as cash or assets, into private pockets has been the motivation behind the entire Rice Elementary saga.
Iowa government was created for the protection, benefit, and security of the people (Art. I §2) which translates into roads, police, fire, sewer, water, schools, and administration for those purposes: how we got from where we were supposed to be to the perversion that consumed Rice Elementary, and then Rice Field instead of saving the school is inexplicable given the limitations written into the basic law of the state.
The Des Moines model of government that other cities model themselves after was the result of reforms instituted to fight corruption in Des Moines. (City Hall is constructed with open rooms to get rid of back-room bargaining but it has been remodeled a number of times to 'modernize' it.) The Dillon Rule of government which rigidly limited municipal powers was based upon an 1868 Iowa Supreme Court Decision dealing with Des Moines government corruption, it was 'modernized' by municipal home rule in 1969.
It makes you wonder what the next reform coming out of Des Moines' bad government will be called...
The end of one effort is usually the beginning of another, and we won't realize it until we are riding the swell of change. The Friends of Rice Field didn't realize they were a movement until they were swept up and involved.
People need to get involved... just find the cause! If you don't try to impart change to right a wrong, then you are part of the wrong.
John Anderson
IA Constitution Art VII § 1 Credit not to be loaned "The credit of the State shall not, in any manner, be given or loaned to, or in aid of, any individual, association, or corporation; and the State shall never assume, or become
responsible for, the debts or liabilities of any individual, association, or corporation, unless incurred in time of war for the benefit of the State. "
Limitation. Section 2. The State may contract debts to supply casual deficits or failures in revenues, or to meet expenses not otherwise provided for; but the aggregate amount of such debts, direct and contingent, whether contracted by virtue of one or more acts of the General Assembly, or at different periods of time, shall never exceed the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and the money arising from the creation of such debts, shall be applied to the purpose for which it was obtained, or to repay the debts so contracted, and to no other purpose whatever.