Good evening and welcome to our June 11th live blog from the Ames City Council.  A couple of things of note this evening--the council will consider an adaptive reuse plan for the former Roosevelt Elementary school site.  The developer wants to put in condominiums while preserving the historic nature of the building. There may be some tax breaks available for this project.  Also, the council will consider a petition to reject the annexation of land on Oakwood Rd.  This annexation was agreed to by people in the area, and approved by the council at it's final meeting in May.  Mayor Ann Campbell told us this week this was the first time in her memory that a voluntary annexation request has been withdrawn.

7:48PM--On the Roosevelt reuse issue, developer Dean Jensen says the project, once completed could generate as much as $3.5 million in property tax revenue for the city.  As it was a school for so long, Jensen says this may the first time it's ever generated revenue for the city.

7:50PM--At-Large Council Member Matthew Goodman asks Jensen if he'd still do the project if abatement wasn't granted--Jensen says he would.  At-Large Council Member Peter Orazem objects to the premise, saying the city shouldn't be in the business of "playing chicken" with developers on the abatement issue.

7:55PM--Fourth Ward Council Member Victoria Szopinski is not convinced abatement is necessary, that the project would be desireable without the tax break.

8:00PM--Szopinski extends the "city picking winners and losers" trope.  This reporter feels this is a false premise, in that the council by it's very nature picks winners and losers every time it votes.

8:07PM--As to Goodman's tax abatement question earlier, it should be noted that he has been on record for a long time in opposition to it's use. If he opposes here, he is being consistent.

8:11PM--A bit of house cleaning I should have mentioned earlier--1st Ward Council Member Tom Wacha is absent.  2nd Ward Council Member Jami Larson is acting as Mayor Pro-Temp in Mayor Campbell absence. 

8:12PM--Council passes tax abatement request, Szopinski and Goodman vote "no."

8:20PM--Goodman and Szopinski both sing Roosevelt project's praises, but double down on abatement being unnecessary,

8:23PM--Council passes reuse and abatement criteria unanimously.

I'll blog more from tonight's Ames City Council meeting, but here's the Time Magazine blog post from James Poniewozik on the NSA/Edward Snowdon issue.  The best line in the peice:

I would advance this line of logic a little further by saying there are a lot of us who couldn't image, in 2013, having friends who oppose us poltically.  Sure, we may have "plenty of insert poltical persuasion here friends" but I'm guessing you don't talk about it much.

Yesterday you didn't know Edward Snowdon's name--today, that name is everywhere.  Snowdon is the contract worker who stole 300 pages of National Security Agency documents and leaked them to the U.K.'s The Guardian newspaper and the Washingtion Post.

As with Wikileaks' Julian Assange, Snowdon is now a man on the run, hiding out in Hong Kong in anticiption of the federal criminal charges that are all but inevitable. 

So...is the guy a traitor who's given up his nation's secrets to advance his own causes (and most likely bank accounts), or is he a hero working under the idealism of a country that says it values it's freedom? 

I have no doubt that there are some things in the interest of national security that needs to be kept secret, but...

I'm also pretty convinced that there is a giant "secrecy industry" at work in this country that is employing some tactics that would stand my hair on end.

How much do I dig NBC's Brian Williams?  How much has Jimmy Fallon grown on me the last couple of years? Awwww yeah...

If you get a minute, go to the You Tubes and look for "Brian Williams Slow Jams the News" also from Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.  It's gold.

You're spending it at a weekend-long swim meet!  Oh, wait--that's me.

As Campustown Action Association Director and all-around good egg Kim Hanna and I talked about this afternoon, you should spend time at Summerfest in Campustown.  It's a decent hang, fun for the kids, and a great way to get to know a part of town you may not know much about. 

When it comes to this IRS scandal, I think lots of critics of the government are (for their own reasons) losing teh forest for the trees.  Let's remember what is at stake here for all those conservative groups what think they've been so wronged.

No one can honestly say, as much as they'd like to, that they were prohibited from the government from organizing.  There are no claims of "we were fobidden from organizing, becasue..."  The Constitution's first amendment guarantees us the right to "peaceably assemble"--not the right to "raise unlimited sums of money without telling anyone where that money came from." And that's the crux of the matter. 

All these groups, that probably DO have political aims, want the goverment to believe they don't. They say they're all about "education" and "advocacy."  501(c)4 tax-exempt status means groups can raise money without disclosing donors, but can't back a specific candidate or ballot issue.  It's a a ham-fisted attempt to use U.S. tax code as an instrument of campaign finance reform.  And, as we're learning, it doesn't work.

All that being said, it doen't matter.  When the IRS copped to the fact that some of it's staffers targeted "tea party" and "patriot" groups for extra scrutiny, it lost any ability to defend itself from the littany of baseless accusations that are being thrown it way.  For reasons beyond my comprehension, conservative groups love to play the "persecution complex" card, and this will feed into it.