Gazette Daily News Briefing, January 9
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for January 9, 2024.
Monday eve ning was just the first round of snow, and what's coming next could come in bunches. The National Weather Service is predicting 6 to 10 inches of accumulation Tuesday in the Cedar Rapids area. It will also be breezy, with a wind of 15 to 25 gusting as high as 40 mph, sometimes leading to blowing snow.
The NWS projections have most of the snow falling before 5 p.m. on Tuesday, with a small chance for more snow through the end of the day.
The high temperature is predicted to be around 32 degrees.
Iowa’s Republican lawmakers promised faster tax cuts and a continuation of the conservative agenda their majority party has enacted as the 2024 legislative session got underway on Monday.
Republican and Democratic leaders made opening speeches laying out their priorities for the 2024 session, with Republicans promising a continuation of policies they have already passed while Democrats asked for an actual seat at the table this session.
Lawmakers took a moment of silence and expressed grief over last Thursday’s shooting at Perry High School. Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley highlighted it as part of Republicans’ commitment to improving public safety, while Democrats said the shooting shows the need for stronger gun control measures.
Hundreds of students across Iowa walked out of school Monday in protest of gun violence organized by March For Our Lives Iowa, a student-led group advocating for ending gun violence and encouraging youth civic engagement. They have met with Iowa lawmakers to lobby for the legislative priorities of limiting gun access to individuals in crisis and prohibiting gun ownership for perpetrators of domestic abuse.
Despite this, Republicans showed no interest in gun control legislation on Monday.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a proclamation that will provide Perry funding as it works to recover from the shooting. Grassley said Republicans would invest in school security, prioritize school resource officers, bolster children’s mental health and teach “resilience over victimhood.”
What Republicans really wanted to talk about was tax cuts.
Republican leaders in the House and Senate promised to accelerate income tax cuts they passed in 2022 and expand business opportunities in the state.
Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver from Grimes compared Iowa’s policies and fiscal standing with those in neighboring, Democrat-run states Minnesota and Illinois. He highlighted Iowa’s fiscal health, noting the $2.1 billion state general fund budget surplus — which is projected to grow to $3.1 billion in the next fiscal year — plus another $3.7 billion in the state’s Taxpayer Relief Fund.
Besides reiterating a call to speed up the tax cuts, Whitver pledged to reduce the number of state boards and commissions — a process already underway after it was included last year in Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ state government reorganization plan and studied by a legislative committee.
The former GoDaddy building in Hiawatha has been sold to local developers, Hiawatha Economic Development Corp. announced Monday.
The internet hosting and domain-name registrar company’s building at 1 Parsons Dr. has been sold to NGD LLC, Doug & Chris Sevey with ENSEVA LLC, Mike and Andy Hodge with Hodge Construction as well as Bill and Tracy Bennett. The developers have not yet unveiled formal plans for redevelopment, according to a news release. The seller is KKR, Silver Lake Partners and Technology.
The more than 73,000 square-foot building was built in 1991 and remodeled in 2017. It housed more than 400 GoDaddy workers in 2020, before the company shared plans to downsize and move to smaller office space because of workforce changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
