CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Two leaders of a Cedar Rapids tourism board have been ordered to serve time in federal prison for defrauding a bank to support a music festival that lost $2.3 million. Aaron McCreight, the former CEO of GO Cedar Rapids, was sentenced to 18 months and Douglas Hargrave, the former chief financial officer, to 15 months. The Des Moines Register reports that both also were ordered together to pay more than $1.4 million in restitution. McCreight and Hargrave previously admitted defrauding a Cedar Rapids bank by misrepresenting revenue projections to get loans for Newbo Evolve. The three-day 2018 music festival staged by Go Cedar Rapids included performances by the band Maroon 5 and singer Kelly Clarkson.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The founder of an educational program for at-risk teenagers in Des Moines says he hopes to reopen the school as soon as next week with enhanced security. That’s about a month after a shooting left two students dead. Will Keeps, the founder of Starts Right Here, was shot in the hip and right hand as he tried to intervene. He said Friday that the Jan. 23 shooting has left him more motivated to resume his work with teens who dropped out or were suspended from traditional schools. When students return, however, there will be armed guards and metal detectors. Police have charged two teenagers from Des Moines with murder.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Donations to Iowa’s Fish/Wildlife fund, informally called the Chickadee Checkoff, fell nearly 15 percent last year but have been gradually shrinking since the fund was created in the early 1980s. Study and support for Iowa’s nongame animals, including songbirds, turtles, frogs, owls and salamanders, is needed more than ever as many species decline in numbers, mostly because of lost habitat. When the Iowa Legislature created the Chickadee Checkoff in 1982, Iowans were eager to check that box on their state income tax forms, Shepherd said. That year, Iowans donated $238,477—which would be more than $700,000 today. Over the years, more checkoff programs were added for taxpayers to make donations to other causes — including the Iowa State Fair Foundation; Firefighters Preparedness Fund and Veterans Trust Fund; and Child Abuse Prevention. These checkoffs are listed in contribution line 57, under Step 9, on the Iowa 1040 individual income tax form. But more than 90 percent of Iowans file their individual income taxes online, the Iowa Department of Revenue reported, and it may be harder to find the checkoff line through online programs.
MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) — For more than three months, all of the glass and plastic in Mason City’s curbside recycling bins hasn’t been recycled at all. Instead, the city has been forced to dump glass and plastic recyclables at the Landfill of North Iowa because the Mason City Recycling Center no longer accepts glass or plastic. Mason City Sanitation Supervisor Scott Brattrub said the change has not had a major affect on day-to-day operations, calling it “not too bad.”
