Ask anyone who was a fan of the old "View from the Basement" feature on the KUNI Public Radio website (that was the precursor of a blog on Statehouse happenings back in the 90s), and they’ll tell you it had great material — but wasn’t updated often enough.
Call it laziness. Call it procrastination. Call it writer’s block. But I could never seem to keep a steady, weekly stream of juicy capitol gossip and news tidbits going.
So, when I launched this PowI-80 blog (maybe 11-12 years removed from the original KUNI pre-blog), I vowed things would be different.
Clearly, not much has changed during the last decade. It’s been more than a month (a lot more!) since my last post. In that time, we at PowI-80 have:
- taken a delegation from Poweshiek County to Washington DC.
- honored the Manatt family at our annual meeting
- provided scholarships to young apprentice gunsmiths who will be at a major job fair in Newton next month, hosted by Brownells
- outlined a proposal for a Poweshiek County revolving loan fund for small businesses
- helped to develop a strategic marketing plan for the Grinnell Tourism Group
- participated in the creation of an innovative regional strategy for improving the size and skills of our workforce (to be released publicly on April 8th)
- facilitated successful grant applications for "The View", a student-operated coffeeshop in Motnezuma, and a landscaping project at the Poweshiek County Courthouse
- continued marketing available sites and buildings throughout the county
- hosted a luncheon that provided information on tax credits for businesses that hire Poweshiek County residents
- presided over a five-county regional marketing alliance
- promoted local attractions to patrons of a regional wine trail
- talked to a lot of people
- avoided updating the PowI-80 blog
That’s not a bad laundry list of activities for an 8-week period. You should hear about these things more promptly.
From now on, you will!
I promise!!
