CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – The interim Cedar Rapids Schools Superintendent faces a challenge to carry on the $312M bond proposal of his predecessor to renovate or replace the district’s middle and high schools as more questions emerge on the plan with a deadline looming. In an update Monday night, staff was expected to ask for a December vote from the school board to put the bond on the ballot for voters. That vote would then happen in March on a plan that includes renovating every district high school, building a new aquatic center and condensing the existing 6 middle schools to 4 larger ones by renovating Taft and Franklin while closing McKinley, Harding, Roosevelt and Wilson Middle Schools and replacing them with new buildings. The board packet for Monday’s meeting includes 17 questions from unidentified board members on the proposed plan, many of them centered on concerns about the proposal to close McKinley Middle School as it serves an area with a higher volume of low-income families with transportation issues. Interim Superintendent Art Sathoff said the questions from the board pose legitimate concerns for those asking if the plan is ready to go to voters. Sathoff pointed out the district has done a public survey, held public meetings and has met privately with community leaders since announcing the plan. However, Sathoff was not part of those as Superintendent Noreen Bush had championed the plan until her death from cancer last month. Now, taking over for Bush, Sathoff says the school board will ultimately decide if the bond vote should go forward with so many questions and without a permanent superintendent in place.
DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa will receive $6.17 million as part of a $391.5 million settlement reached with Google over its location tracking practices, according to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. The settlement is the largest multi-state attorney general privacy settlement in the nation’s history. Google uses location data as part of its personal and behavioral data collection to build its user profiles. That data results in targeted ads from advertisers. However, Miller said even a limited amount of location data can be used to infer personal details, and Google has misled consumers about its tracking practices. Miller said the settlement will require Google to do the following:
- Show additional information to users whenever they turn a location-related account setting “on” or “off.”
- Make key information about location tracking unavoidable for users (i.e., not hidden); and
- Give users detailed information about the types of location data Google collects and how it’s used at an enhanced “Location Technologies” webpage.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Iowa’s News Now) — Average gasoline prices in Iowa have fallen 3.5 cents per gallon in the last week. Gas prices are averaging $3.51/g today, according to GasBuddy’s survey of 2,036 stations in Iowa. Prices in Iowa are 15.0 cents per gallon lower than a month ago and stand 33.1 cents per gallon higher than a year ago. According to GasBuddy price reports, the cheapest station in Iowa was priced at $3.09/g yesterday while the most expensive was $4.29/g, a difference of $1.20/g.
