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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-09-23 Correspondence4 1 Marian Karr From: Bail keller [gakeller@mchsi.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 8:16 PM To: Marian Karr; ''City Council Subject: RE: Concern for the Community Dear Ms Karr--- Thank you for your prompt attention to our inquiry message. We appreciate your response! We will be forwarding this information to our insurance company to work out the details of payment for damage to our vehicle. Thanks again, Gail Keller From: Marian Karr [mailto:Marian-Karr@iowa-city.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 3:47 PM To: gakeller@mchsi.com; *City Council Subject: RE: Concern for the Community Your letter raising concern regarding liability insurance for a taxi company has been referred to me for a response. The City Council sets minimum liability insurance for taxi companies, vehicles, and drivers. Current certificates of insurance are on file in my office. Both the driver and the company involved in this accident were properly licensed and insured with the City. The cab was towed for failure to have proof of financial responsibility. The driver brought in the proof which showed it to be in effect at the time of the collision- he just did not have it in the cab at the time of the event, as required by law. He was cited for the offense and will be going to court to get that dismissed. He was also cited for failing to stop in assured clear distance. I hope this answers your questions and please let me know if I can be of further assistance. /,~lirnur~i .7C..i City Clerk Population 62,380 (phone) 319-356-5041 __ From: Bail keller [mailto:gakeller@mchsi.com] Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 9:41 PM To: Council Subject: Concern for the Community This correspondence will become a public record. Dear Iowa City Council Members---- I am writing to you in regards to a situation that I believe is of great concern to our community. On 9/9/2008 Page 2 of 2 Saturday, September 6, 2008, my husband and I were involved in a motor vehicle accident on Clinton Street. We were struck from behind by a driver of a local taxi cab company (Iowa Cab). Damage to both vehicles was relatively minor (<$1000) and while no one was injured in either vehicle, we are concerned that the cab driver and/or his employing cab company were ticketed for "failure to provide security for liability" (i.e. not insured). It is not reflected on the accident report, but at the time of the accident, approximately 5-6 college age women were passengers in the cab. All of the women immediately departed the scene when the vehicles stopped and the drivers discussed the situation prior to the arrival of the police. The accident was handled professionally and appropriately by the officer on the scene. Our concern is the fact that a person hired by the cab company as well as the cab company were not insured for liability. Is there any ordinance or laws that pertain to this situation? What would have been the result if any of the young women had been injured? How can citizens in need of a ride be assured that they are hiring a driver and cab company that are insured? In addition to this concern is that fact that I am now liable for the repair of my vehicle until my insurance company can seek action against the Iowa Cab company and the driver in question. Thank you in advance for your attention to this concern. Sincerely, Gail Keller 3127 Anita Circle NE Iowa City, IA 9/9/2008 4 2 September 5, 2008 Council Members, Iowa City City Council 410 E. Washington St. Iowa City, Iowa 52240 Re: Maintenance of Right of Way Area Across from Fire Station No. 2 Dear Council Members: We live at 340 Koser Avenue in University Heights. At the time Emerald Street was paved some years back, the area adjacent to the northwest corner of our lot (south of the bus shelter at the southeast corner of the intersection of Emerald Street and Melrose Avenue, immediately across from Iowa City Fire Station No. 2) had construction debris left on it. Over the years, our efforts to keep this area presentable have been frustrated by the combination of uneven grade and the presence of rough fill materials. This makes mowing hazardous, necessitating repeated applications of herbicides. In the summer of 1999, Steve Ballard (University Heights City Attorney) was advised by Dennis Mitchell in the Iowa City Attorney's office that grading the area would not occur because the area might be torn up in an upcoming storm sewer improvement. More recently, the area has been used for parking of vehicles and machinery during the current reconstruction of Fire Station No. 2. We are writing to ask that the area be properly graded and seeded in conjunction with the conclusion of that project. With appropriate machinery and personnel presently there, now obviously would be the best time to fix a situation that has persisted for many of the forty years that we've lived here. In keeping with our efforts to date, we would be happy to keep the area mowed once it has been properly graded and either seeded or sodded into a maintainable lawn. Please call us at 338-8418 if you've questions about anything above or to otherwise offer some suitable resolution of this matter. ~~ .,,, ~ Very truly yours, _~ ~:_4 ~. _ _ ~/ ~;~ r ~ ~ ~ ~ - ~ j ... - ~ ~ James C. Searls ~. , ~.. - p ~f ,l' Mary Searls cc: Eleanor Dilkes, City Attorney 4 3 ~ Marian Karr From: Patty Mishler [pmishler@msn.com] Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 10:56 AM To: Council Subject: Game Day Parking-PLEASE HELP! Importance: High PLEASE consider raising the price of n ticket for illegal parking on Iowa City streets...AT LEAST on Hawkeye home game days! For the first time in the twenty-seven years we have lived on Woodside Drive, our block was lined with approximately thirty curs and two buses, all parked illegally, beginning Friday night before the Iowa State game! I personally witnessed speeding cars nearly colliding head on at the top of the hill since BOTH cars were forced into a one lane situation due to the illegal parking on the street. It would have been nearly impossible for emergency vehicles to make their way through the mess if they had been needed. Our over-worked and under-appreciated Iowa City police force took the time to ticket all the vehicles during the game...but imagine my surprise to learn that the ticket price for illegal parking was only TEN DOLI.ARS..and some cars remained on the street for more than 36 hours!! This is totally ridiculous, considering that law abiding fans were paying up to $40 to park LEGALLY in driveways in our Wren! Since parking has been drastically reduced in the Kinnick Stadium area it is time to make the penalty for illegal parking more expensive! Imagine the GLEE that was felt by illegal porkers when they finally returned to their cars and discovered they had each saved $30 BY BREAKING THE LAW!! (I personally heard their comments and cheers!) I'm afraid a precedent has been set by allowing these first-time offenders in our area to "get off cheap" so I wonder what will happen in two weeks for the next home game! I would think n parking ticket for $50 or $100 might be a deterrent because I KNOW a $10 ticket is NOT! As our property taxes continue to rise, please understand you have a revenue 9/15/2008 Page 2 of 2 stream that is just waiting to be tapped...and one that will penalize those who break the law and endanger the safety of the residents of Iowa Cityl Let's raise funds from a source other than the property owners! Thank you again to the Iowa City Police (the unsung heroes of Hawkeye football Saturdays) and I look forward to hearing from each of you on the council regarding this issue. Patty Mishler (319) 354-5155 This correspondence will become a public record. 9/15/2008 4 4 Marian Karr From: mary gravitt [gravitm5836@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 4:50 PM To: eleanor-dikes@iowa-city.org; Council; gravitm5836@hotmail.com Subject: EXTENTION OF NO SMOKING AREAS Attachments: Robert N. Proctor Nazi War on Cancer.doc Dear Ms. Dikes: I attend the September 9, 2008 Iowa City City Council Meeting on September 9, 2008 and was appalled at how Item #9 was handled. No public input was allowed. The Law was bulldozed through. Piling onto a state law that in all probability is Unconstitional is unethical, and it is an attempt to drive smokers off the face of the Earth. The state law has not been tested fully in the courts. Most of the health hazard that the state law and Iowa City law wish to prevent are fair and reasonable, but the section which bars smoking in restaurants and bars is unjust because people have choice as to where to eat and drink. Each establishment should be allowed to have this choice. I say this because nicotine is still a legal drug that is sanctioned and taxed by the federal government, just as liquor is. I neither smoke or go to bars. This is my choice both health wise and economic wise, but people go to bars for a reason: to be with like minded peoples. I do not go to restaurants because of economic reasons, but other go to enjoy themselves and the atmosphere offered in such places. The US government has known about the direct connection between lung cancer and cigarette smoking and the addictive nature of nicotine since 1929, so to pile on a spurious law that has not proven itself to be Constitutional is unethical. The US adventure with 1920-30s Prohibition in which a poor law was used to control 'bad behavior' did more harm than good. The above attachment is only the preliminary proof as to the effect that bad laws can bring. I will sort out my other documents which I want to send/bring or mail to council. Thank you, Mary Gravitt 2714 Wayne Ave #6 Iowa City, 52240 Keep the Faith, Mary Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live. See Now 9/12/2008 IOWA CITY CITY COUNCIL MEETING NOTES: SEPTEMBER 9, 2008 7PM ITEM # 9 Consider an ordinance amending Title 6 "Public Health and Safety" to declare additional areas as non-smoking places and Title 3 Entitled "city Finances and Taxation and Fees," to increase the fines for Littering City Plaza (second consideration). • Cigarette Butts in Pedestrian Mall Robert N. Proctor. The Nazi War on Cancer. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Was it ...the Americans and British who first proved the cigarettes and lung cancer link? The startling truth is that it was actually in Nazi Germany that the link was originally established. German tobacco epidemiology was, in fact, for a time, the most advanced in the world, as were many other aspects of the anti-tobacco effort. Support for tobacco hazards research was strong among the Nazi medical elite; indeed, it was in Germany in the late 1930s that we first find a broad medical recognition of both the addictive nature of tobacco and the lung cancer hazard of smoking. (173) What may most disturbing about the Nazi anti-tobacco campaign is the rather uncomfortable light it sheds on the relation between science and politics at this time. The story is not the familiar one of the suppression of science, or the unwilling conformity of science to political ideals; the relation between science and politics-at least in the aspect I [Robert N. Proctor] shall be treating-was more symbiotic, more supportive. The Nazi war on tobacco shows that what most people would concede to be "good" science can be pursued in the~name of antidemocratic ideals. It is therefore not enough to speak only of 2 the suppression or even survival of science; we have to see how dictatorial ideals worked to inspire and guide the science and policies of the time. The Nazi war on tobacco shows that what most people would concede to be "good science can be pursued in the name of antidemocratic ideals. It is therefore not enough to speak only of the suppression or even survival of science; we have to see how dictatorial ideals worked to inspire and guide the science and policies of the time. (176) Tobacco was opposed by racial hygienist fearing the corruption of the German germ plasm, by industrial hygienist fearing a reduction of work capacity, by nurses and midwives fearing harms for the "maternal organism." Tobacco was said to be "a corrupting force in rotting civilization that has become lazy," a cause of impotence among mean and frigidly among women. The Nazi-era anti-tobacco rhetoric dared from an earlier generation's eugenic rhetoric, combining this with an ethic of bodily purity and performance at work. Tobacco use was attacked as "epidemic," as a "plague," as "dry drunkenness" and "lung masturbation." (179) [After WWI], the introduction of milder types of tobacco and flue curing made it easier for smokers to inhale the burning fumes, encouraging a shift from pipes and cigars to cigarettes. The change was not a trivial one: indeed, as Henner Hess observes, we are talking about "a revolutionary development in the history of drug consumption, roughly comparable in significance to the invention of the Hypodermic needle for opiate addiction." By contrast with pipe smokers, cigarette smokers tended to draw the fumes more deeply into the lungs, delivering a much higher dose of tar, nicotine, and other noxious substances to their bronchial passageways. (181) 3 The dramatic growth of lung cancer in the 1920s and 1930s was not at first attributed to smoking: the influenza pandemic of 1918 was sometimes blamed, as were automobile exhausts, dust from newly tarred roads, diverse occupational exposures (including tars and chlorinated hydrocarbons), increasing exposure to X-rays, exposures to chemical warfare agents during the First World War, malnutrition in the aftermath of the war, or even the upsurge of racial mixing. Some scholars doubted the reality of the increase-a 1930 article in the Medizinische Klinik argued that the widespread use of X- rays was simply allowing lung caners to be diagnosed more often-but the more common view by the middle of the Weimar era was that disease was genuinely on the rise, for as yet unclear reasons. (181) The Chemnitz (and Later Dresden) physician Fritz Lickint in 1929 was one of the earliest to publish statistical evidence joining lung cancer and cigarettes. Hew was not the first to suggest alink-Isaac Adler and other had already done this-but his was the most thorough review up to that time, which also presenting new statistical information. His evidence was fairly simple, continuing what epidemiologists today calla "case- series" showing that lung cancer patients were particularly likely to be smokers. He also showed that in countries where women smoked as much as men, there was very little difference between male and female lung cancer rates. Lickint's article served as a springboard for many subsequent investigators ...all of whom demonstrated the carcinogenic potency of tobacco tar while crediting Lickint's pioneering vision. (183- 184) Lickint went on to become German's foremost exponent of the antismoking message, cautioning the tobacco had surpassed alcohol as a public health menace and that 4 strong steps needed to be taken to counter the threat. In his [1,100-page] Tabak and Organismus (Tobacco and the organism), published in 1939, Lickint chronicled an extraordinary range of ills derived from smoking, chewing, or snorting tobacco..... He also compared tobacco addicts to morphine addicts and made a convincing argument that "passive smoking" (Passivrauchen-he seems to have coined the term) posed a serious threat to nonsmokers.... [He] speculated that tobacco might play a major role in as many as seven thousand male cancer deaths per year in Germany. (184-185) It is not yet clear whether tobacco addicts were ever incarcerated for their addiction, but we do know that fate befell persons addicted to other substances... . Smokers may have been fearful of such moves, given the widespread conception of tobacco use as a "first stage" in the move toward abusing ever stronger substances-like morphine or cocaine. Nazi Germany was famously rough on drug traffickers: a 1938 report by U.S. narcotics officials praised the Nazi regime for throwing a notorious Austrian drug trader into an internment camp "where he will undoubtedly remain for the rest of his life." (190-191) Documenting the lung cancer hazard of smoking was one of the most remarkable achievements of the Nazi era. Angel H. Roffo of Argentina (1882-1947), who published much of his work in German cancer journals, had already shown by 1930 that tars derived from tobacco smoke, could induce cancer in experimental animals.... Roffo was important in shifting the emphasis away from nicotine and onto tar as the active agent of turmorigenesis. ;Lickint by 1935 could state that nicotine was "probably innocent" of carcinogenic potency and that benzpyrene was more likely the guilty party. However this was soon hotly disputed. (191-192) 5 Lickint had pointed to the preponderance of smokers among lung cancer patients in 1929, and his was the lead most often followed when physicians began to nail down the link....The stage was thereby set for the era's two most important statistical analyses: a 1939 paper by Franz Hermann Muller ... and a 1943 paper by two other scientists ...that provide the most sophisticated proofs up to that time that smoking was the major cause of lung cancer. The 1943 paper is also noteworthy insofar as it almost certainly would not have been written without the personal intervention of Hitler in the anti-tobacco effort. (193-194) Muller's paper is an exquisite piece of scholarship. Published in 1939 in German's leading cancer research journal, the paper begins by noting the dramatic upsurge in lung cancers in the bodies autopsied at Cologne University's pathology institute. The point is made that though lung cancer was extremely rare in the nineteenth century, it had now become the second largest cause of cancer death, accounting for nearly a quarter of all cancer morality in the Reich.... He worried also about the economic burden of smoking, trotting out the widely publicized fact that 10 percent of the entire national income was going to cigarettes and alcohol. (194-195) Muller's most important contribution, however, was his statistical investigation, prompted by his observation that the lung cancer patients in his care were often heavy smokers and that men were far more likely than women to contract the disease (his own Cologne data showed a sex ratio of six to one; a Lickint review of twenty-five publications gave a figure of five to one). His analysis was what we today would call a survey-based retrospective case-control study, meaning that he compared, through questionnaires and medical histories, the smoking behavior of lung cancer patients with 6 that of a healthy "control group" of comparable age. The survey was sent to the relatives of the deceased (lung cancer kills rather quickly).... The same was done for a group of 86 healthy "controls" (gesunden Mannern) of the same age as the cases. (195-196) The results were stunning. The lung cancer victims were more than six times as likely to be "extremely heavy smokers"-defined as daily consumers of 10-15 cigars, more than 35 cigarettes, or more than 50 grams of pipe tobacco.... Muller concluded not just that tobacco was "an important cause" of lung cancer, but that "the extraordinary rise in tobacco use "was "the single most important cause of the rising incidence of lung cancer" in recent decades (emphasis in original). This is an extraordinary claim-the strongest ever issued up to that time, stronger even than any of the claims made by British or American scientist until the 1960s. Richard Doll and A. Bradford Hill's oft- cited paper of 1950, for example, concluded only that cigarette smoking was "a factor, and important factor, in the production of carcinoma of the lung." Wynder and Graham's famous paper from the same year characterized tobacco only as a "possible etiologic factor" in the increase of the disease. (196) Muller's article is notable in several other respects. For one thing, there is no obvious Nazi ideology or rhetoric in the piece. There is one brief hint that "the genetically vulnerable" should be advised not to smoke, but race is never mentioned and there are no other remarks that would lead one to identify the article as a "Nazi" piece of scholarship. The brief bibliography (twenty-seven sources) refers the reader to the work of at least three Jewish scientist: (Max Askanazy, Walther Berblinger, and Marx Lipschitz), each of whom is also cited approvingly in the text this is not as unusual as one 7 might imagine: Jewish scientists from the Weimar period were often cited in Nazi-era medical literature, despite occasional pressures to put an end to the practice. (197-197) It is not yet clear what became of Muller, author of the world's first case-control epidemiologic study in the field of tobacco. There is no trace of the man after the war, and it is quite possible that he died on the front, prior even to his thirtieth birthday. (199) In the late 1930s and early 1940s, anti-tobacco activists called for increased tobacco taxes, advertising bans, and bans on unsupervised vending machines and tobacco sales to youth and to women in their child-bearing years. Activists called for bans on smoking while driving, for an end to smoking in the workplace, and for the establishment of tobacco counseling centers. The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls published antismoking propaganda, and the Reich Health Publishing House printed manuals describing simple experiments teenagers could perform to demonstrate the hazards of alcohol and tobacco. Counseling centers were established where the "tobacco ill" (Tabakkranke) could seek help-dozens of such centers had been set up by the end of the 1930s. Tobacco-free restaurants and sanatoria were also opened, often with financial support from the German Antitobacco League. (201) Another response was to initiate research into the production ofnicotine-free cigarettes. Nicotine had been recognized as the active ingredient in tobacco since early in the ninetieth century, and by the 1890s techniques were available to lower or remove entirely the offending/delighting substance. The Reich Institutes for Tobacco Research in Forchheim, near Karlsruhe, launched a series of studies to eliminate nicotine from cigarettes through novel breeding techniques and chemical treatment of the harvested plants, and by 1940 fully 5 percent of the entire German harvest, or roughly 3,000,000 kilos, was "nicotine-free tobacco"..... (201) High-nicotine tobacco plants wee also bred at this time, primarily to obtain the pure nicotine commonly used as a pesticide. Russian tobacco refuse had been a major source of raw nicotine, and when supplies became difficult to obtain after the mid- 1930s-owing to the souring ofGerman-Russian relations-the substance was obtained from high-nicotine tobacco plants bred expressly for this purpose by the Reich Institute for Tobacco Research (Reichsanstalt fur Tabakforschungan industry group). Anyone who doubts that tobacco companies have "manipulated" the nicotine content of cigarettes need only consult German tobacco literature, where we have countless examples of such manipulation. (202) The proliferation of "low-nicotine" and "nicotine-free" tobacco products-often with varying levels of the intoxicant-lad to efforts to regulate advertisements and to standardize nicotine contents. The ordinance on Low-Nicotine and Nicotine-Free Tobacco of May 12, 1939, for example, required "low nicotine" tobacco to contain less than 0.8 percent of the alkaloid, and the nicotine-free cigarettes no more than 0.1 percent. Anti-tobacco activists by this time were fond of pointing out that nicotine was only one of many harmful elements of tobacco, and that low-nicotine was only many harmful elements of tobacco, and that low-nicotine products might actually cause smokers to increase their smoking to maintain a comfortable level of nicotine intake. (202) Research was also launched to investigate the psychology and psychopharmacology ofsmoking. A 1940 medical thesis explored why blind peoples seldom smoked and why soldiers found smoking more pleasurable in the daylight than at 9 night. A 1937 article explored the "psychopathology ofsmoking, including a purported connection between smoking and pyromania....Dozens of preparations were available to assist people in quitting smoking, ranging from a silver nitrate mouth wash-1 part in 10,000 was said to cause tobacco to have an unpleasant taste-to a substance known as "transpulmin," injected into the bloodstream to produce a similar effect (it was said to bond with the terpenes and other aromatic compounds in tobacco, producing a disagreeable sensation). Trade name compounds such as "Analeptol" and "Nicotilon" were offered, as were tobacco substitutes such as chewing gums, ginger preparations, atropine, and menthol cigarettes. Hypnotism was popular, as were various forms of psychological counseling. (202-203) Legal sanctions began to be put into place in 1938. The Luftwaffe banned smoking on its properties that year, and the post office did likewise. Smoking was barred in many workplaces, government offices, hospitals, and rest homes and midwives were ordered not to smoke while on duty. "No-smoking" cars were established on all German trains, with a fine of two Reichmarks to be levied upon violators. The NSDAP announced a ban on smoking in its offices on Apri129, 1939, and within a year SS chief Heinrich Himmler had announced a smoking ban for all on-duty uniformed police and SS officers.... The Journal of the American Medical Association that year reported Hermann Goring's decree baring soldiers from smoking on the streets, on marches, and on brief off-duty periods. Sixty of Germany's largest cities banned smoking on streetcars in 1941.... In July of 1943, a law was passed making it illegal for anyone under the age of eighteen to smoke in public. Smoking was banned on all German city trains and buses 10 in the spring of 1944; Hitler personally ordered the measure to protect the health of the young women serving as ticket takers..... (203) Health was clearly the predominant concern ... in the restrictions placed on tobacco advertising. The term Damen-Zigarette (ladies' cigarette) was banned, as was the use of sexual or female-centered imagery to advertise tobacco products. Ads implying that smoking possessed "hygienic values" were barred, as were images depicting smokers as athletes or sports fans or otherwise engaged in "manly" pursuits. Advertisers were no longer allowed to show smokers behind the wheel of a car and were explicitly barred from ridiculing antismoker, as they once had done quite unabashedly.. . . (204) Jena [Germany] was acenter ofanti-tobacco activism.. Through Karl Astel, director of the new institute and president, since the summer of 1939, of the University of Jena. Astel was head of Thuringia's Office of Racial Affairs and a notorious anti-Semite and racial hygienist (he had joined the Nazi party and the SS in July of 1930).... Astel was also a militant antismoker and teetotaler who once characterized opposition to tobacco as a "national socialist duty." On May 1, 1941, he banned smoking in all buildings and classrooms of the University of Jena, and the following spring, as head of Thuringia's Public Health Office, he announced a smoking ban in all regional schools and health offices. Tobacco in his view had to be fought "cigar by cigar, cigarette by cigarette, and pack by pack"-hence his notoriety for snatching cigarettes from the mouths of students who dared to violate his Jena University tobacco ban. Tobacco abstinence was understandably a condition of employment at his Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research: the proposal for the instateauthored by Gauleiter Sauckel-noted 11 that this was "as important as Aryan ancestry"/ freedom from tobacco addiction was said to be necessary to guarantee the "independence" and "impartiality" of the science produced. (209, 213) There is also, as already hinted, an important gender aspect. Women and girls were much more strongly dissuaded from smoking than were men and boys ...hence the ubiquitous slogan "Die deutsche Frau Raucht nicht!" (The German woman does not smoke!).... Women were not allowed to smoke in prison.... Gender images blurred with other association, including stereotypes of race and class... Smoking was associated with jazz, with swing dancing, with rebellion, with Africa, with degenerate blacks, Jews, and Gypsies ...with many of the other fears that inspired the Nazi retreat into a paranoid, xenophobic fortress of purity, cleanliness, and muscular macho health fanaticism. (218-219) "A printed slogan, "The German woman does not smoke," hangs conspicuously in a restaurant in Ulm [Germany] The Nazi campaign against smoking by women was sometimes enforced by Storm Troopers, who would declare, "The Fuhrer disapproves!" and then snatch the cigarette from a woman's mouth."1 Why did Germany had such a powerful anti-tobacco movement given that in the 1920s it was the United States-not Germany-which possessed the world's mot powerful organized opposition to alcohol and tobacco[?] A clue is found in John C. Burnham's discussion of American attitudes toward tobacco at the time Burnham's argument is that, in the United States, the moralistic certainties that had led to alcohol prohibition and tobacco temperance in the 1920s were under attack by the 1930s. Several of the "diseases" crusaded against at the height of Prohibition (masturbation, for 1 The New Order. Time-Life Books. Alexandria, Virginia: Time Life, 1989 (117). 12 example) turned out to be pseudo-diseases, and it was easy to believe that the same might turn out to be true for tobacco. Where, after all, was the evidence that smoking cause impotence or led to crime? The public grew weary of such imaginative scaremongering, and the burden of proof shifted from the defenders of tobacco to its accusers. The net effect was to stymie the medical critique: critics of smoking were easily tarred as advocates of the same kind of puritanical prudery that had brought us Prohibition and cautions against dancing, coffee drinking, card playing, and many forms of sexual expression. American physicians rarely criticized tobacco in the 1930s or 1940s, and those who did object to tobacco use-at medical meetings for example where the smoke was often so thick that physicians were unable to see the slides-were easily and often dismissed as prudes or even cranks. (222) Burnham does not discuss Germany, but what is interesting is how the situation there was inverted. In Germany, the tobacco and alcohol temperance movements of the 1920s were actually strengthened by the rise of National Socialism. Nazi rule was welcomed by the anti-alcohol and anti-tobacco forces, and even in the United States, at least one anti-alcohol journal applauded the election of Hitler. Germany therefore experienced nothing comparable to the sea change experienced in America when Prohibition was repealed in 1933 (at least not until the 1950s....). German physicians rarely felt that by criticizing tobacco they were caving in to an outdated puritanical zeal; in Germany under Hitler, temperance or abstinence in matters of habit was more in fashion than ever-at least at the level of public propaganda. (226) Germans never experienced prohibition and never suffered the backlash against tobacco moralism felt by American physicians.... The health effects of smoking were 13 more aggressively studied, more broadly condemned. Germans found it easier to castigate tobacco, having never suffered the moral excess of Prohibition. The burden of proof was not so much on those affirming a danger; there was little risk of appearing puritanical or "moralistic" by attacking tobacco. Indeed, many of the same moralistic tones we associated with American Prohibition can be found in Nazi-era rhetoric. (226) If we expand our field of view for a moment, we can in fact see a kind of backlashit just occurs two decades later in German than in America. After the war Germany loses it position as home to the most aggressive anti-tobacco science and policy. Hitler, of course, was dead, and many of his anti-tobacco underlings either had lost their jobs or were otherwise silenced.... (227) Popular memory of Nazi tobacco temperance may well have handicapped the postwar German anti-tobacco movement.... It does seems to have shaped how we regard the history of the science involved: the myth that English and American scientists were first to show that smoking causes lung cancer (Richard Doll was knighted for his work in this area) was a convenient one-both for scholars in the victorious nations and for Germans trying to forget the immediate past. The hoary specter of fascism is perhaps healthier than we are willing to admit. (228) Nazi anti-tobacco activists were aware of the American backlash against Prohibition and clearly had this in mind when they cautioned against a total ban on cigarettes. As one activist articulated the predicament, "forbidden fruit is tempting" (verbotene Frucht reizt).... On June 18, 1941 [Goebbels himself a heavy smoker since the 1920s] ordered all tobacco propaganda to be cleared through his office. (231) 14 Tobacco rations were entirely denied to women accompanying the Wehrmacht. New wartime taxes made the habit somewhat less affordable: a November 3, 1941, ordinance increased the cigarette tax to 80-95 percent of the base retail value-nearly twice what Germans would pay in the first two decades after the war. (243) The net effect of these and other events-the primary one, of course, being the increasing shortages caused by the war-was to lower military tobacco consumption during the final years of the Reich.... The number of very heavy smokers (30+ cigarettes per day) was down dramatically-from 4.4 percent to 0.3 percent-and similar declines were recorded for moderately heavy smokers. This same survey maintained that smoking among Russian prisoners of war had increased by 24 percent-a rather bizarre statistic, given that most were in the process of being shot or starved to death. Playing the Nazi Card Pro-tobacco advocates have begun to play the Nazi card, with talk of "NicoNazis" and "tobacco fascism." In 1997 when anti-tobacco activists in Winthrop, Massachusetts, tried to ban all sale of tobacco within the city limits, an offended tobacco merchant suggested that the Board of Health was "taking up where Hitler left off. A Toronto newspaper has accused anti-tobacco activists of being "NicoNazis: and "health fascists." The most stunningly offensive case I know of came in the summer of 1995, when Philip Morns of Europe ran ads in many European magazines seeking to identify smokers with ghettoized Jews and anti-smokers with Nazis. The ads showed a map of Amsterdam with an area near the traditional Jewish quarter cordoned off and labeled "Smoking Section." The headline asked, "Where will they draw the line?"-implying that society's efforts to 15 restrict smoking are comparable to Nazi efforts to isolate Jews .... We are likely to see more efforts to play the Nazi card, as anti-anti-tobacco campaigns move into higher gear. (270-271) 4 5 STATE HISTORICAL ~ 9 r ~ ~,~ ~~, SOCIETYof ~ _ _ ~_: \,J~~~Y~ - ~~-n s ~ n, ~ . r~ ~ J t t ; . ,. A Division of the Iowa Department of Culturai Affairs ;, ~ ; September 11, 2008 The Honorable Regenia Bailey Mayor 410 E Washington Street Iowa City, IA 52240-1826 RE: Wetherby, Isaac A., House, 611 North Governor, Iowa City, Johnson County Dear Mayor Bailey: We are pleased to inform you that the above named property, which is located within your community, was accepted for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places by the State Nominations Review Committee at its June 13, 2008 meeting. Once a final version is received in our office, the nomination will be submitted for fmal review by the National Park Service. Listing in the National Register provides the following benefits to historic properties: • Consideration in the planning for Federal, federally licensed, and federally assisted projects. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 requires Federal agencies allow the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation an opportunity to comment on projects affecting historic properties listed in the National Register. For further information please refer to 36 CFR 800. Eligibility for Federal tax benefits. If a property is listed in the National Register, certain Federal tax provisions may apply. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 revises the historic preservation tax incentives authorized by Congress in the Tax Reform Act of 1976, the Revenue Act of 1978, the Tax Treatment Extension Act of 1980, the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and Tax Reform Act of 1984, and as of January 1, 1987, provides fora 20 percent investment tax credit with a full adjustment to basis for rehabilitating historic commercial, industrial, and rental residential buildings. The former 15 percent and 20 percent investment Tax Credits (ITCs) for rehabilitations of older commercial buildings are combined into a single 10 percent ITC for commercial or industrial buildings built before 1936. The Tax Treatment Extension Act of 1980 provides Federal tax deductions for charitable contributions for conservation purposes of partial interests in historically important land areas or structures. For further information please refer to 36 CFR b7 and Treasury Regulation Sections 1.48-12 (ITCs) and 1.170A-14 (charitable contributions). • Consideration of historic values in the decision to issue a surface coal mining permit where coal is located, in accord with the Surface Mining and Control Act of 1977. For further information, please refer to 30 CFR 700 et seq. • Qualification for Federal and State grants for historic preservation when funds are available. Eligibility for State Tax Credits for rehabilitation. Properties listed on the National Register, eligible for listing on the National Register or Barns constructed before 1937 are eligible to apply fora 25 percent state tax credit for rehabilitation. The cost of a 24-month qualified rehabilitation project would exceed either $25,000 or 25 percent of the fair market value for a residential property or barn less the land before rehabilitation. For commercial properties, the rehabilitation project would exceed 50 percent of the assessed value of the property less the land before rehabilitation -whichever is less. The State Historic Preservation office must approve the rehabilitation work before an amount of tax credits will be reserved for your project. There are limited credits available each year, so let us know if you want the application information. , 600 EAST LOCUST STREET, DES MOINES, IA 50319-0290 P: (515) 281-5111 Elected officials, representing the communities within which nominated properties are located are encouraged to comment concerning the propriety of those nominations and the accuracy of nomination content. A fi8een day period of public comment, during the period of Federal review, follows the listing of this nomination in the Federal Register. Any comments previously submitted to the State Nominations Review Committee are automatically forwarded as part of the nomination and need not be repeated for the Federal review. If the owner of a single property nomination or a majority of private property owners in a district nomination object, a property will not be listed; however, the Keeper of the National Register can make a determination of the eligibility of the property for listing in the National Register. If the property is then determined eligible for listing, although not formally listed, Federal agencies will be required to allow the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation an opportunity to comment before the agency may fund, license, or assist a project which will affect the property. . Should you have any questions about the National Register of Historic Places, Tax Incentives or about this nomination in particular, please feel free to contact me by telephone at 515-281-4137 or by a-mail at beth.foster@iowa.gov. You may enjoy visiting the National Register website at http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/index.htm. Sincerely, ~~ ~ ~ _ ~~ for Barbara Mitchell `'=' Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer ~ _~ r ms :. s -,y :._-. ... ,;. ~, _ `~\ - ..r M w / 1~ ~ ~ .,, ~5d /~ ` ' W 4 6 Marian Karr From: jehart21 @aol.com Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 1:52 PM To: jehart21@aol.com; Regenia Bailey; kurtkimmerling@msn.com; CLINESALLY@cs.com; Michael Lombardo; Eleanor M. Dilkes; Marian Karr; rsullivan@co.johnson.ia.us; tneuzil@johnson.ia.us; Imeyers@johnson.ia.us; pam_smith@harkin.senate.gov; richard_bender@harkin.senate.gov; pharney@co.johnson.ia.us; sstutsman@co.johnson.ia.us Subject: Re: Iowa City - IA -Flood Victim -Idyllwild Community Attachments: idyllwild 6-14 3.jpg; idyllwild 6-14.jpg; 100_0322.JPG; 100_0312.JPG I've attached a few pictures, just as a reminder -----Original Message----- From: jehart2l@aol.com To: regenia-bailey@iowa-city.org; kurtkimmerling@msn.com; CLINESALLY@cs.com; michael- lombardo@iowa-city.org; eleanor-dilkes@iowa-city.org; marian-karr@iowa-city.org; rsullivan@co.johnson.ia.us; tneuzil@johnson.ia.us; lmeyers@johnson.ia.us; pam_smith@harkin.senate.gov; richard_bender@harkin.senate.gov; pharney@co.johnson.ia.us; sstutsman@co.johnson.ia.us Sent: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:28 pm Subject: Iowa City - IA -Flood Victim -Idyllwild Community September 12, 2008 Iowa City - IA -Idyllwild Community -Flood Victim Jeanne Hartman -Owner 13 Camborne Circle, Phone: 319-621-3612 To: Mayor Bailey, Governor Culver, Senator Harkin, Senator Grassley, FEMA (Cedar Rapids) Ms. Beth Freeman, FEMA - R. David Paulson, Sr. Legislative Assist. Mr. Richard Bender, Sr. Legislative Assist. Ms. Pamela J. Smith, Congressman Dave Loebsack, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, City Manager Michael Lombardo, City Attorney Eleanor Dilkes, Iowa City Council Members, Idyllwild HOA -Sally Cline, Kurt Kimmerling, FOX News -Brit Hume, Iowa News Agencies Note: Hard Copy Mailed to Some Addressees Horizontal Property Regime -How Can this Law Prevail in a Federally Declared Disaster? How can the State allow Iowa Code 499B and 504A to stay in tact ("horizontal property regime") or prevail, in aflood-disaster of this magnitude? Is the Governor or City Mayor going to allow and/or enable the builder or Association to financially destroy its homeowners -retirees, families and young professionals alike? Why many at FEMA and the SBA are in Dismay -Unprecedented/Un-chartered Territory - There are second floor homeowners, in Idyllwild, that according to FEMA, sustained an average of $500 in damages, and according to the SBA anywhere from $1,000 to $6,500 in damages. Yet, according to the "horizontal property regime," Second floor homeowners will be responsible for everyone's damage equally, and that although each unit is designed differently (square footage, etc.) and each sustained more or less damage than others, each homeowner is being asked to pay $21,000 in mold abatement, $5,000 in winterization fees, and possibly $200,000 for re-building -EACH. 9/15/2008 Page 2 of 3 To top it all off, even if a homeowner wanted to get an SBA loan to pay for the very "questionable and inequitable" Special Assessments, the Home Owners Association has tied up ALL of the SBA funds in their quest fora $2 million dollar loan! A total gridlock! ! *Note: I personally requested an itemized invoice of the $21,000 mold mitigation to see the charges as they related to my second floor unit vs. the common areas vs. each unit's mitigation charges, yet I'm told that the detail I'm requesting, such as disposing of common area and non-common area trash isn't available. I ASK -Would the Mayor, Governor or Senator pay $226,000 plus a $150,000 mortgage plus temporary housing when he or she only sustained maybe $7,000 in total damage? If your home had only $500 in mold mitigation/damage, would you pay $21,000? What can you do to help us Mayor Bailey? Do you understand the situation we are in? Yes, we just found out today that grant money had been released by Governor Culver today, but even if those funds were made available to Idyllwild, the money wouldn't even put a dent into the damage that has been done, as explained above. Also, if you made 85k -150k you wouldn't qualify, correct? And the Condo Association does not qualify for mitigating the costs of the common element damage, correct? Reality - HOA did not Purchase Required Insurance and Many will be Forced into Financial Ruin if the HOA and HPR Prevails The financial and emotional distress is beyond words. I'm asking you -Mayor Bailey, the Governor, and the Senator to put themselves in the shoes of the 92 homeowners of Idyllwild. How can the HOA, the City and State standby and allow this atrocity to happen? Honestly, was it the intention of the State, City Builders and HOA to force a community of young professionals, seniors and others into foreclosure and/or bankruptcy? Is that the intention of Iowa Code 499B and 504A? Why is our Community in this situation today? FACT - if you were to retrieve the archived City Council meeting minutes from 1990, you will discover that many concerned citizens testified to the fact that the Planning and Zoning Commission ignored all warnings, and allowed the developers and builders to go against all of the natural factors of the river and build Idyllwild in a flood zone. How can the City claim that they did not know the risk? If the builders knew the risk and the HOA was informed of the risk, why wasn't flood insurance required, or purchased? Why did our Condo Association choose not to participate in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), especially when they knew that more than two-thirds of the common elements are currently sitting in a 100-year flood plain? As a personal testimony, and as an out-of--state homebuyer in 2005, I was never informed that part of our community fell into a 100-year flood plain, or for that matter, told a portion of our community fell into a 500-year flood plain. If this fact had been made known, I'm sure the VA would have required my lender to obtain flood hazard insurance. Who should be held accountable for not disclosing this information? Moreover, why were the by-laws written to forbid homeowners from purchasing insurance? The Association, the City and State Need to Step-up and Do what is Right Look at the facts. Every homeowner on the first floor sustained severe/substantial damage. The cost to 9/15/2008 Page 3 of 3 re-build is astronomical. It's not a question of "if ', but "when" our community will flood again. The City allowed the community to be built within a flood plain, and now our community finds itself caught in the middle -physically, emotionally, and financially. We MUST receive financial relief soon and it must be in the form of a buyout. Where are Iowa City and State Priorities? Instead of moving our community out of harms way, it seems that the City's priority is to save the University and spend millions of dollars on raising Dubuque Street. It is heartbreaking to know that our City and State would choose traffic concerns over the safety and well being of its community members. What will happen to the more than 6 feet of water that flooded Dubuque Street? Look at where Parkview Church and the Idyllwild community is currently located -we took on four -six feet of water ourselves -it's not just a matter of more water in City Park, it's a matter of how many more feet will Parkview Church and Idyllwild take in.... 3, 6, 12 feet...it would be catastrophic. How can Idyllwild recover from this disaster? What is your plan? What are you going to do to help us Mayor Bailey? Governor? Senator? FEMA? How devastating it will be for our Community if we do not receive a buyout. I'll continue to raise my voice on behalf of the community....we need help now. Special Assessments are spiraling out of control! I Look Forward to Your Reply Most Sincerely, Jeanne Hartman 319-621-3612 JEHART21_~a~aol. com Looking for spoilers and reviews on the new TV season? Get AOL's_._u.ltimate uide to fall N. Looking for spoilers and reviews on the new TV season? Get AOL's ultimate guide to_fal.l._N. 9/15/2008