The deadline is approaching for Iowans to nominate projects for 1000 Friends of Iowa’s Best Development Awards. Since 2005, the awards have recognized good development and planning practices by cities, companies, non-profit organizations, or local leaders.

I have long been involved with 1000 Friends of Iowa, though I have no role in selecting the award winners. The external panel of judges will look for buildings and projects that “help advance sustainability across our state by considering site placement, design, water efficiency, energy management, materials and resources used, indoor environmental quality, public use, and long-term benefits.” There’s no fee to apply for an award in any of the following categories: New Residential, Renovated Residential, New Commercial/Civic, Renovated Commercial/Civic, Mixed Use, Leadership, or Storm Water Management. Click here to download an application form to submit by December 15.

Every year I am inspired to read about the latest batch of Best Development Awards. After the jump I’ve posted summaries of the winning projects from 2014. You can find full descriptions and photos of them all here, including bullet points on “smart growth principles” that impressed the judges. Complete archives on all the Best Development Awards from the past decade are available at the 1000 Friends of Iowa website.

Bonus trivia for Iowa politics junkies: the Green Pilot Streetscape Project in West Union (Fayette County), which won the 2014 Best Development Award in the Renovated Commercial/Civic category, indirectly spawned the bogus “heated sidewalks” claim that became one of the big lies of the 2010 general election campaign.

As if we haven’t heard enough lately about backroom dealings involving the University of Iowa, Ryan Foley reported yesterday for the Associated Press,

The University of Iowa has quietly awarded several no-bid contracts totaling $321,900 to a prominent GOP consultant for polling and social media services often delivered through subcontractors, a review by The Associated Press discovered.

Critics say the contracts with former Iowa Republican Party chairman Matt Strawn’s namesake company — uncovered through a public records request — look like a sweetheart deal among Republican insiders and a potential waste of money.

That’s putting it mildly.

Eddie Mauro announced this week that he will seek the Democratic nomination in Iowa House district 41, covering some neighborhoods on the west side of Des Moines in Polk County. I enclose below a district map and background on Mauro and State Representative Jo Oldson, who was first elected to the legislature in 2002. Mauro’s campaign is on Facebook here. Oldson has a personal Facebook feed, but I’m not aware of any campaign Facebook page or other social media account.

The winner of the Democratic primary will almost certainly win next year’s general election. House district 41 contains 9,648 active registered Democrats, 4,766 Republicans, and 5,441 no-party voters, according to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office. President Barack Obama won nearly 68 percent of the vote here against Mitt Romney in 2012. Bruce Braley won nearly 67 percent of the vote here against Joni Ernst in the 2014 U.S. Senate race. Oldson defeated her Republican opponent in 2012 by more than a 2:1 margin. She did not have a GOP challenger in 2014 and won more than 80 percent of the vote against a Green Party opponent.

In the spirit of the Russian proverb “Trust, but verify,” I checked last week to see whether funding the Iowa Utilities Board promised before Thanksgiving to release had reached energy centers housed at Iowa’s state universities.

Good news: the Iowa Energy Center at Iowa State University and the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research at the University of Iowa have both received all of the remittances the IUB collected on their behalf from gas and electric utilities. The centers do not appear to have in hand all of the interest payments to which they are entitled under Iowa Code, but IUB spokesperson Don Tormey assured me the agency “will forward the additional interest funds” to the energy centers, if any more interest accrues.

Strange news: the IUB chose an unusual way to send this year’s funding to the energy centers, and I don’t fully understand why. I’ve enclosed what I learned below, along with details on the money sent to the Iowa Energy Center and the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research so far, and what may yet be owed to them.

Republican Party of Iowa Chair Jeff Kaufmann blew a gasket in March when soon-to-be presidential candidate Scott Walker hired a consultant who had said some disparaging things about Iowa:

“It’s obvious she doesn’t have a clue what Iowa’s all about,” Mr. Kaufmann said. “I find her to be shallow and ignorant,” he added, “and I’ll tell you, if I was Governor Walker, I’d send her her walking papers.”

A few months later, Kaufmann brought down the hammer on some volunteers who displayed the Confederate flag on behalf of a county GOP committee:

“I am just absolutely, utterly disgusted on multiple levels,” Kaufmann said in a telephone interview. “Shame on them and I don’t want them in my party.”

The Iowa GOP leader’s reaction to Donald Trump’s latest disgraceful, illegal idea was weak by comparison.

Voters will elect a new state representative tomorrow in Iowa House district 21, which covers all of Union and Adams counties, most of Cass County, and some rural areas in Pottawattamie County (see enclosed map). The winner will succeed longtime Iowa House Republican Jack Drake, who passed away in October.

Tom Moore is the GOP candidate here, having won a six-way contest at a special nominating convention easily on the first ballot. I have been unable to find a detailed bio on Moore, but Ian Richardson reported for the Creston News Advertiser that Moore lives in Griswold (Cass County) and is a “retired teacher and former assistant manager for Southwest Iowa Ag in Massena.”

Moore will face Democrat Tim Ennis, a longtime resident of Corning (Adams County) who has held various jobs in the agriculture sector, particularly grain marketing. More background on Ennis is below. He was the 2014 Democratic challenger to Drake.

Although anything can happen in a low-turnout special election, Moore should hold Drake’s seat with little trouble. House district 21 contains more than twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats, according to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. Mitt Romney outpolled Barack Obama here by 53.64 percent to 45.01 percent in 2012; Joni Ernst crushed Bruce Braley here by a 2:1 margin in the 2014 U.S. Senate race. Also last November, Drake defeated Ennis in the Iowa House race by more than 3,000 votes.

I enclose below a district map and more background on Ennis. UPDATE: Added more information about Moore.

SECOND UPDATE: Moore won the election by 1,409 votes to 853 according to unofficial results. I had to laugh at the comment from Republican State Leadership Committee President Matt Walter: “His victory allows House Republicans to strengthen their majority—proving yet again that Republicans win by running qualified and experienced candidates who connect with voters, even in states twice carried by President Obama.” No, Moore’s victory allows the GOP to maintain the same Iowa House majority (57 to 43 seats), and he won because this is a strongly Republican district.

The Iowa Board of Regents voted unanimously on Wednesday to rename the University of Iowa’s Children’s Hospital the “Stead Family University of Iowa Children’s Hospital,” to honor contributions made by alumni Jerre and Mary Joy Stead.

The regents sought no public comment on the proposal, which was unveiled with the bare minimum of advance notice required under Iowa’s open meeting law.

They also “had no discussion on the name change” before voting to approve it, Ryan Foley reported for the Associated Press.

The Steads deserve recognition for supporting a children’s hospital where countless Iowans have received life-saving care. Many people with comparable wealth are far less generous. The university acknowledged the Steads’ $20 million commitment to the hospital by naming the Pediatrics Department after the donors and fundraising campaign co-chairs in 2013.

By rubber-stamping the university’s request to rename the hospital, the Board of Regents failed to consider the opportunity cost of giving up naming rights for a nearly century-old institution in exchange for an additional $5 million pledge from the Steads.

The optics of renaming the hospital without public input are also bad, coming so soon after the regents’ pick of Bruce Harreld as president of the university. Not only has Jerre Stead had longstanding business relationships with Harreld, he and university Vice President for Medical Affairs Jean Robillard and Regents President Bruce Rastetter strongly influenced Harreld’s hiring.

Dave Swenson

The EPA finally announced the amount of ethanol that will be blended with the nation’s fuel supply in 2015 and the amount to be blended in 2016 (see this summary in Bleeding Heartland). Depending on where your headline writers live, this was reported as a win for ethanol or a disappointment to the biofuels industry. Here in Iowa, the Des Moines Register told us that Iowa’s ethanol producers, notwithstanding a boost in ethanol mandate levels from earlier EPA proposals this year, found it necessary to “criticize new EPA fuel standard.”

A reasonable person might wonder, what’s up? What’s up, is the ethanol industry has an insatiable demand for public support of ethanol consumption, and it views any erosions in that support as an unforgiveable betrayal.

For years, Governor Terry Branstad and his appointees have cited fake job creation statistics to create the illusion that Iowa was on track to fulfill one of Branstad’s key promises from the 2010 campaign. This week, the deception culminated in an official slideshow “indicating that 206,200 gross jobs have been created in Iowa since 2011, based upon current employment statistics.”

It’s a shame the governor can’t celebrate Iowa’s low unemployment rate without exaggerating job growth during his administration.

It’s even more unfortunate when major news media downplay the dishonesty underlying Branstad’s claims.

Jon Neiderbach announced on Facebook today that he has decided not to run in Iowa House district 43: “We desperately need to fight hard to fix Iowa government, but I came to the conclusion that this wasn’t the best way for me to help make that happen.” He added that he “strongly” endorses fellow Democrat Jennifer Konfrst, “a wonderful candidate with strong connections to HD 43,” and will volunteer for her campaign. Neiderbach was the Democratic candidate for state auditor in 2014 and launched his bid for the Iowa House this September.

Incoming Iowa House Majority Leader Hagenow will be favored to win a fifth term here. His campaign will have virtually unlimited financial resources, and for decades, voters in this part of the Des Moines suburbs have elected Republicans to the state legislature. However, Hagenow is far more conservative than most of those predecessors. In addition, as Bleeding Heartland has noted before, Hagenow won re-election by fewer than two dozen votes in the last presidential election cycle, after Republicans spent heavily on negative tv ads that Democrats left unanswered. He won by fewer than 100 votes in 2008.

House district 43 leans slightly to the GOP on paper, with 6,673 active registered Democrats, 7,416 Republicans, and 5,981 no-party voters, according to the latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. President Barack Obama outpolled Mitt Romney in these precincts by 50.6 percent to 48.3 percent, smaller than his statewide winning margin. Then again, Joni Ernst beat Bruce Braley by only 2 percent in HD-43, a lot less than her 8-point victory in the 2014 U.S. Senate race.

Any comments about potentially competitive Iowa House races are welcome in this thread. I enclose below a map of House district 43. Click here for background on Konfrst, who is on the web at JenniferKonfrst.com as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

Final note: few Iowans in either party know more about the inner workings of state government than Neiderbach, who worked in the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau for fourteen years and as a management analyst for the Iowa Department of Human Services for fifteen years after that. He would be a valuable asset to any Democrat’s efforts to improve state budgeting and operations.

Watching Republican Party of Iowa elites proudly stand by U.S. Representative Steve King over the years, sometimes I’ve wondered: how far would an Iowa GOP candidate have take immigrant-bashing rhetoric to be called out by his own party leaders?

State Senator Mark Chelgren gave us the answer this week.

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst announced today that she has retired from the Iowa Army National Guard, effective November 30, after more than 23 years of military service. O.Kay Henderson reported for Radio Iowa,

Ernst was the commander of a battalion of 150 soldiers who did a 14-month tour of duty in Kuwait and Iraq in 2003 and 2004. After her election in 2014, she shifted to duty at Camp Dodge as the assistant to the Iowa Army National Guard chief of staff.

“Obviously serving as a United States Senator does take a lot of time, a lot of energy and I, of course, want to continue serving Iowans, but it will be in a much different capacity here in the United States Senate,” Ernst said, “and, of course, I would love to spend more time with my family as well.”

During an Iowa Public Television appearance in May, Ernst said she planned to retire from military service “within the next year,” after ensuring “that we have an appropriate backfill for me” and someone ready to take on her National Guard work. On that same television program, Ernst was asked whether she is “more careful” about criticizing President Barack Obama because of military codes of conduct. Ernst responded that she is “respectful of the President. I respect him because he is our President. I am going to disagree with him on many different issues.”

In the same spirit, I respect Ernst’s military service and thank her for it. By all accounts she was a highly capable commander, including during wartime. I did not expect her to retire from the National Guard, because of how large a role her military career has played in her political image-making. For various reasons John Deeth articulated well, it’s the right time for Ernst to focus on representing her constituents, and I appreciate that she made the same call. I didn’t vote for her, and her voting record in the Senate could hardly be more opposed to my political values, as she is further to the right even than Senator Chuck Grassley. But I wish her well as she works more family time into her schedule next year.

Iowa politicians from both parties may disagree on hundreds of policy issues, but they have long been united in supporting the biofuels industry. Iowa’s elected officials expressed outrage in late 2013, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed reducing the Renewable Fuel Standard, a “federal program that requires transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels.” Governor Terry Branstad and then-Representative Bruce Braley were among those who urged the EPA not to reduce the amount of ethanol required. Political pressure eventually delayed the EPA’s action on adjusting the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Yesterday the EPA released the final version of the RFS. More details, background and supporting documents on the rule are available here. The final standards for 2014 and 2015 “reflect the actual amount of domestic biofuel used in those years, and standards for 2016 (and 2017 for biodiesel) […] represent significant growth over historical levels.” They rule also sets higher goals than those the EPA proposed earlier this year. Christopher Doering reported for the Des Moines Register,

Janet McCabe, the acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said in an interview the ethanol quotas follow Congress’ intent to promote the increased use of renewable fuels. She said slower-than-expected growth in the nascent cellulosic ethanol industry and lower gasoline demand made the 2007 figures from Congress no longer achievable.

These numbers will “really drive the volumes significantly beyond where they have been in the last couple of years, which is what Congress intended, and that’s substantial growth, achievable growth,” McCabe said. “The industry is going to really have to push to achieve these, but it provides the signal they’ve been asking for. I think when people look at the numbers they will see that this really is very good for the industry.”

Nevertheless, Iowa politicians expressed strong disapproval yesterday of the EPA’s final rule. I’ve enclosed below statements from the governor’s office and several members of Congress and will update this post as needed.

Once you venture outside political circles, you can find Iowa voices questioning the consensus about federal policy on biofuels. At a January 2014 hearing organized by Branstad, Francis Thicke was the only speaker “to talk about the ‘other side’ of ethanol,” arguing that it is “disingenuous to frame the debate on the Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) as a struggle between farmers and Big Oil.” Bleeding Heartland user black desert nomad also defended the EPA’s planned update to the RFS. Whereas elected officials tend to cite Renewable Fuels Association statistics as gospel, Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson has questioned industry claims regarding biofuels production and job creation.

Television reporter and former KCRG morning show anchor Ashley Hinson emerged today as the likely Republican nominee in the Iowa House district that outgoing Speaker Kraig Paulsen is vacating. Paulsen announced in August that he would not seek another term in House district 67. Instead, he will take up a newly-created senior position at Iowa State University next year.

Hinson is on Twitter here and has a campaign website and Facebook page. At this writing, HinsonforHouse.com says little about political priorities; there’s no issues page or even a full bio of the candidate. The blurb on the front page offers a vague call to “stand up” against “politics as usual” and a promise to “make sure that everyone feels heard and is heard in Des Moines.” Hinson’s working campaign slogan appears to be “Trusted. Proven. Leader.”

Democrat Mark Seidl made his campaign in House district 67 official earlier this month. He unsuccessfully challenged Republican State Representative Renee Schulte in 2010 and ran against Paulsen in 2012. I am not aware of a Seidl campaign presence on Twitter or Facebook, but the candidate’s website is here. The issues page consists of bullet points on improving the business climate in Iowa, creating well-paid jobs, supporting education, balancing the budget, and maintaining “Iowa’s leadership in renewable energy.”

I enclose below a map of House district 67, details about the district’s political make-up and recent voting history, and background on Hinson and Seidl.

Popular toys have never been risk-free. Now, in addition to watching out for choking hazards, toxic chemicals, and toys so loud they can damage a child’s hearing, parents need to know that some children’s playthings may reveal our personal information to hackers or corporate spies.

What’s on your mind this long weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Thanksgiving has been a national holiday on the last Thursday in November since 1869. I didn’t know that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt caused an uproar when he tried to move the date a week early in 1939, hoping to stimulate the economy.

For many people, Thanksgiving is inextricably linked to certain food traditions. One of them is leftovers the day after the feast. Please share your own favorite recipes for leftovers in the comments. Des Moines restauranteur George Formaro offered three of his favorite uses for extra turkey here. Most years I make soup on the day after Thanksgiving. Here are four ideas, two of which would work for vegetarians as well as for omnivores. We had a smaller gathering than usual yesterday, so I baked chicken rather than a turkey. I made curried butternut squash soup early in the day; this recipe also works well with canned pumpkin. I didn’t make cranberry sauce this year, but when I do, I like to mix the leftover sauce with apples for a pie a day or two later.

Matt Viser published a fantastic piece in the Boston Globe this week: “Michael Dukakis would very much like your turkey carcass.” Turns out the former Massachusetts governor and Democratic nominee for president in 1988 “collects Thanksgiving turkey carcasses to make soup for his extended family for the year to come.” I enclosed excerpts from Viser’s piece below, but do click through to read the whole thing. The Dukakis family recipe for turkey soup is simple and easy to adapt to personal tastes.

Ideally, everyone could have a restful and enjoyable Thanksgiving, but the holiday season brings extra stress to many. Some tips for battling anxiety or depression this time of year are here and here. The first holiday season after a major bereavement can be particularly difficult for mourners; Compassion Books has hundreds of resources for people coping with “serious illness, death and dying, grief, bereavement, and losses of all kinds, including suicide, trauma, sudden loss, and violence.” A separate section inclues age-appropriate books for children who have lost a parent, sibling, grandparent, or even a treasured family pet. Carol Staudacher’s book of short meditations, A Time to Grieve, has been a source of comfort to me at difficult times. Whether or not you are religious, Harold Kushner’s verse by verse analysis of the 23rd Psalm is fascinating and provides some helpful perspectives on grieving.

After today’s installment, Iowa wildflower Wednesday is signing off for the winter and will return sometime in March or April. All previous posts in the series are archived here. I often hear positive feedback about the wildflower diaries. To my surprise, one that struck a chord with lots of readers this year featured Poison hemlock and Wild parsnip, a pair of potentially harmful invasive plants.

Guest authors are welcome to contribute posts anytime at Bleeding Heartland. Please get in touch if you would like to be part of Iowa wildflower Wednesday during 2016. I’d be particularly grateful if some talented photographer could capture usable shots of “plants that got away” from me: Cardinal flower (Red Lobelia), Four O’Clock, Purple poppy mallow, or Common rose mallow. I never get any depth or definition on flowers with red or deep pink petals.

In keeping with a Bleeding Heartland tradition, I’m closing out this year’s series with asters, some of which are among the latest-blooming fall wildflowers. Click through to see New England asters and Frost asters (I think) from 2012, 2013, and 2014.

According to Elizabeth Hill, the first plants you’ll see after the jump are Heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides). I took those pictures in early October at the Grinnell College Conard Environmental Research Area. Elizabeth deserves a lot of credit for Iowa wildflower Wednesday’s existence, because she inspired me to learn more about native plants.

Iowa naturalist and photographer Leland Searles identified the next plant featured today as a subspecies of Calico Aster called Symphiotrichum lateriflorum ssp. lateriflorum. They are growing near the bank of North Walnut Creek in Windsor Heights.

I have trouble distinguishing aster species with white ray flowers and yellow disk flowers, so a few mystery plants are pictured below too. They include some unidentified asters I found today just off the Windsor Heights bike trail, behind the Iowa Department of Natural Resources building on Hickman Road. Last weekend’s snowfall finished off the last few flowering black-eyed Susans and brown-eyed Susans, but even now, a few asters are in full bloom.

The Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) announced yesterday that it “has started the process to transfer funds earmarked for the Iowa Energy Center (IEC) at Iowa State University and the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research (CGRER) at the University of Iowa.” The retreat came less than a week after a spokesperson had insisted, “The board will disburse the funds when they are satisfied (the centers) have answered all the board’s questions.”

Restoring the flow of money means the centers charged with promoting alternative energy and efficiency and “interdisciplinary research on the many aspects of global environmental change” no longer face possible staff layoffs or program cuts. But yesterday’s climb-down won’t erase the damage done by IUB Chair Geri Huser’s unwise and unprecedented decision to withhold funding, in the absence of any legal authority to do so. She miscalculated in three ways.

A Republican challenger to three-term State Senator Jeff Danielson in Iowa Senate district 30 emerged last week. Bonnie Sadler is on Facebook here and on Twitter here. Danielson has a campaign website as well as a Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Danielson was the Iowa legislative incumbent re-elected by the narrowest margin in 2008, beating Walt Rogers by just 22 votes out of more than 32,000 cast. Although Danielson won his third term by a somewhat larger margin in 2012, Republicans are still likely to target this race as one of their top two or three pickup opportunities. The Republican State Leadership Committee has committed to play for the Iowa Senate majority in 2016. Democrats currently control the chamber by 26 votes to 24.

I enclose below a map of Senate district 30, a review of its voter registration numbers and recent voting history, background on both candidates, and first thoughts on what should be a central issue during next year’s campaign.

Incoming Iowa House Speaker Linda Upmeyer says the majority House Republican caucus will handle education spending early during the 2016 legislative session, and will likely not approve funding for Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa. I recommend reading Erin Murphy’s whole interview with Upmeyer, which appeared in the Quad-City Times on Sunday. Follow me after the jump for more thoughts on Upmeyer’s comments and how state support for public school districts and Planned Parenthood’s family planning programs may play out next year.