First Legislative Coffee draws a crowd

A large crowd packed the Hy-Vee Club Room for the first Legislative Coffee of the year hosted by the Jasper County League of Women Voters Saturday. Rep. Greg Heartsill, Rep. Dan Kelley, Sen. Chaz Allen and Sen. Amy Sinclair were present to give remarks and answer questions.

Sinclair started off the event with her new committee assignments including education, local government and commerce.

“We are stepping into a structural deficit without budget so anything this year is going to be tough,” Sinclair said.

Heartsill followed with his committee assignments which are similar to the past year. He is vice chair of government oversight, vice chair of local government, judiciary and public safety and his new assignment is on environmental protection.

The area’s newest senator, Allen, entertained the crowd saying he would only take three minutes instead of the 10 allowed.

“I don’t want to say too awful much because there are things that have gone on while I wasn’t there for the past 36 years that I don’t know anything about that I seem to get caught up when I bring what I think is a new idea, we should try this and everybody is like we’ve been doing, trying this for 36 years,” Allen said.

He will serve as vice chair on ways and means, commerce, veterans affairs, human resources and local government.

Kelley returns to the same committee assignments he had in the past including ways and means, environmental protection, agriculture, state government, administration and regulation budget and international relations. Kelly also touched of the hottest topic of the morning when discussing bills he is working on.

“One (bill) will call for soil and water testing along the pipeline should it happen,” Kelley said.

Various people in the room had questions about the proposed Bakken Pipeline from the environmental impact to eminent domain. They discussed eminent domain pertaining to a private company and private property.

“It is only suppose to be used for public use, not to take from one private individual and give to another or private developer,” Heartsill said.

He explained a previous precedent in Connecticut where the court agreed with using eminent domain to give private land to a company to build a large shopping center because it would bring more tax dollars to the community than if a house was built on the land.

Also discussed was current water quality throughout the county and state. It was brought up that Iowa is ranked 49 out of 50 for the worst water in the country.

“Water quality comes from a cooperated effort between the ag industry but frankly from the cities,” Sinclair said. “Not to mention any names but there are cities that clean the nitrates out of their water so they feed it to their citizens then dump it right back into the river for the next city to have to deal with and that is not OK.”

Two future Legislative Coffees are planned for Feb. 21 and March 21.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com