Congratulations to Julia Dannen, owner of D & S Services here in Mason City. America’s Small Business Development Center located in Ames has awarded Julia the 2021 Deb Dalziel Woman Entrepreneur Achievement Award. This award recognizes women who have made significant improvement in their lives or the lives of others through their entrepreneurial successes. Quite an honor!
One of the highlights of the week for me was the passage of HF848, a bill that will help expand broadband coverage to rural areas across the state. Sitting on the Information Technology standing committee allowed me to enjoy the bipartisan efforts that created this bill. Working together to benefit Iowans is what we are sent to the Statehouse to do. More information on this bill can be found below.
I am excited about another bill, HF787, that has not received much notice but will help fill an important need. Our local meat lockers are very busy and often booked for an entire year ahead. This bill deals with the feasibility of establishing artisanal butchery programs at our community colleges, providing much-needed training and producing qualified personnel. There are currently 100 Federally-inspected and 140 state-inspected meat lockers in Iowa.
HF831, the felony expungement bill that I cosponsored, did not make it out of the Senate by the end of this 2nd Funnel Week, so it is dead for this year. Hopefully, we can revive it next year. It would have expunged a felon’s record if they had been clean for 10 years, and it was only applicable for minor, non-violent class “D” felonies.
Although we did not pass many bills out of the House this week, I expect that will increase next week. There is much work left to be done on departmental budgets that will be the focus for the rest of this session.
