Another example of a lack of government oversight

If you don't live in Iowa then you probably have not heard about this story, but since I used to be a resident of the Des Moines area, you might want to check this out. A big scandal has broken out in Des Moines with the revelation that the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium, an agency that has the mission of job training, paid enormous salaries and bonuses to three of its senior executives. As outrageous as the salaries and bonuses are, along with the fact that money that could be uses for job training is instead being fleeced to those 3 geniuses, its even more outrageous to me that the board which okayed the compensation apparently did not realize that a problem existed until someone inside the agency blew the whistle. The story linked below talks about the whole issue, including the director acting like her compensation was not out of line or undeserved. Nothing like a dedictated public servant. Of course this is even more of a scandal because the head of the board overseeing this program is none other than good ol' Archie Brooks, a city council member in Des Moines. Coincidentally, his daughter works for the agency, along with his brother in law and step daughter. Oh, by the way, the woman in question that until a few days ago ran this agency, Ramona Cunningham? Yeah, she used to date ol Arch. Way to go Arch. I remember when I lived in the area I thought Archie was kind of sleazy, glad to see that he has done nothing to change my opinion of him.

The best part of this whole ordeal, besides the fact that many people who could really benefit from job training may not get it now because this money has been wasted, is that the state may have to repay a good chunk of this money to the federal government.

I also liked the quote from Cunningham who basically seemed to have the attitude, according to the article from the Des Moines Register linked below, that since many audits didn't catch this problem that it must not be a problem then. Hmmm, sounds like something Archie would say.

Yuck!!

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060411/NEWS10/60411004/1001&lead=1

The 9-11 Death Toll continues to climb

Maybe the saddest thing about the 9-11 disaster is all of the people who have died, and those who will continue to die in the coming months and years, from exposure to toxic contaminants from the World Trade Center site. The link below from AP via Yahoo tells the story of a NYPD detective in his 30's who just died from exposure to contaminants while doing cleanup work at the site. Its pretty sad, the guy leaves a wife and kids behind, and he was just there trying to help out. Thinking of all the times you saw fireman, police officers and just plain civilians working without protective gear at the site, it makes you wonder how many more deaths will come.

At the time of the disaster, I don't think anyone anticipated all of these problems for those who helped with the cleanup. Maybe the authorities should have done a better job of providing protective gear at the scene, especially days and weeks afterwards. No one expects that they should have had gear there that day, but in a week they should have been able to do so. You also wonder how many of these brave people were offered protective gear such as masks and respirators but turned them down, of course not knowing the potentially life threatening risks that they were taking.

Read about it here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060412/ap_on_re_us/attacks_health;_ylt=Asn5XHFizwI4F6FLum49XNxvzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--