Home Care In Holland, IA

The attorney for the Iowa City Community School District has been evaluating legal avenues to challenge the state's ban on mask mandates in schools, he told school board members Tuesday.

But Iowa's law was written in a way that leaves little room for public schools to fight it, Joe Holland concluded.

"I looked at the court filings in all the states I know of where litigation is pending — Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona — to see if there was anything in any of those cases that was a tool we could use to either impose a mask mandate or get involved in litigation," said Holland, the district's legal counsel. "Unfortunately, they don't offer much relief.

"I want to reassure you that if I thought we had a remedy in court, we'd be there by now," he said.

The school board requested information from Holland about a possible legal challenge to the state's law, according to board President Shawn Eyestone. Holland reviewed litigation in other states with bans on mask mandates in schools, combed through Iowa law and Iowa City's recently imposed mask mandate looking for information, among other research, he told the board.

Iowa law House File 847 says school boards, superintendents or chief administering officers of schools "shall not adopt, enforce, or implement a policy that requires its employees, students or members of the public to wear a facial covering."

That strict language is why the Iowa City district that serves 14,000 students has not chosen to flout the state law, as the school year opened Monday with concerns about the new delta variant of COVID-19 spreading while no vaccine yet exists for children under age 12.

As of Wednesday morning, 16 students are positive with COVID-19 in the district. Ten are in quarantine.

It's not clear what the consequences could be for the district if it chose to defy the mask law, Holland said. But they could include the loss of funding, accreditation or administrators' licenses.

If a district loses accreditation, that means graduating seniors might be denied entry to colleges or universities, he said.

"Litigation would be costly. I don't know if that should be a factor, necessarily, in looking at the safety and well-being of thousands and thousands of students. But there's also a tangible cost in terms of staff time. ... And I don't think we can be blind to political consequences there might be, or consequences that might come back to the district not just this year, but for years to come," Holland said.

Holland said he has been in communication with other districts and lawmakers about "alternatives." The most promising are working through the U.S. Department of Education and possibly the U.S. Office of Civil Rights, he said.

"We just don't have the tools we need right now other than simply defying the law," he said.

Holland is an attorney at the Iowa City-based general practice law firm Holland, Michael, Raiber & Sittig PLC. He has been a member of the Iowa Council of School Board Attorneys since 1980.

School board Vice President Ruthina Malone asked if it would be possible for the Iowa City district to sign on to a lawsuit put forth elsewhere in the state, whether by parents or other districts.

Holland said it is possible. He also said that parents and teachers would have more standing in court than a district.

School board member Charlie Eastham asked a question that prompted 12 seconds of silence in the room: "How far do you think the state can go in imperiling the health of students in this district?"

Holland said he did not have an answer.

On Friday, Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague announced that all people in the city would be required to wear a mask when unable to maintain six feet of social distancing in public. While Teague has defended the legality of his mandate, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds' office called it illegal under House File 847, which also applies to cities and counties.

That same day, Iowa City schools superintendent Matt Degner said in a message to families and staff that the district applauds the city's efforts to mandate masks for all individuals in the community, but the district cannot enforce it.

"I don't think the city was surprised that the district couldn't enforce the city mandate," Holland said, mentioning that he has talked to the city attorney about the situation.

Still, the district is under pressure from some parents to break state law. An online petition with more than 1,100 signatures urges the Iowa City school board to mandate masks within district buildings this fall.

Also last week, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona sent a letter to Reynolds and Iowa Department of Education Director Ann Lebo saying that state law is "at odds" with the Department of Education's planning process for districts that are returning to school. The department offered to partner with Iowa "to further our shared goals" of protecting students and educators.

"What I want the board to know, and what I want the public to know, is that we are constantly looking for ways to deal with this, both (with) litigation and other ways. And we're not going to stop," Holland said.

Cleo Krejci covers education for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter via @_CleoKrejci.

Cedar Rapids Jefferson’s Lily Holland and Linn-Mar’s Garrett Bauermeister among Iowa Open champions

Morgan Burhans - Prairie senior

CEDAR RAPIDS — Cedar Rapids Jefferson sophomore Lily Holland has one simple reason for playing summer tennis.

“... so I don’t forget how,” Holland said Sunday after winning the 16-and-under girls’ title at the Baird Iowa Open tennis tournament.

The tournament helps players get prepared for the high school season.

From the start, Holland was unstoppable, cruising through the first few rounds and beating Kate Holton in the finals, 6-1, 6-1.

She said she had a great time at the annual tournament, calling the experience “pretty awesome.”

Holland has many goals this season after placing sixth at the Class 2A state singles in May.

“(Her goals are) to develop more offense by doing more with the balls that land midcourt,” said her coach Cam Watts, “also trying to generate more speed on her ground strokes and serves to get free points.”

Holland said she was able to win the tournament by “being patient and trying to wait to set up the point to finish it.”

Having summer tournaments like the Iowa Open helps her get prepared for the season and complete her goals.

Sign up for Prep Sports

Subscribe now and receive weekly rankings, highlights and commentary on Iowa high school sports coverage.

Another standout player last weekend was Linn-Mar sophomore Garrett Bauermeister. He beat Easton Moon in the 16U finals, 6-1, 6-4.

His success came from “putting balls in play and keeping my head in. I just worked hard the whole match.”

For Bauermeister, the Iowa Open prepares him for the next season by “putting me against the best players across Iowa who are putting in time all year.”

He would like to “make state and hopefully place” next spring.

He had a good time at the tournament, too. Winning the singles title definitely topped off Bauermeister’s weekend.

“It's been fun,” he said. “(I have) lots of friends here. (I’ve) been able to play doubles with them and against them.”

Highlights

Iowa became the sixth state to enact a comprehensive consumer privacy law after Gov. Kim Reynolds signed SF 262 into law on March 28, 2023. The Act Relating to Consumer Data Protection uses similar language as the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Law (VCDPA) but removes certain consumer rights and data governance obligations, resulting in a law that is substantively more like the Utah Consumer Privacy Act. The new Iowa law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2025.

The following tables compare the Iowa law to the laws of the five other states that have passed comprehensive consumer privacy legislations. A State Consumer Privacy Laws "cheat sheet" is also available for downloading and printing.

Overview

The Iowa law is heavily modeled after existing state laws, meaning that organizations already complying with other state laws will likely face little, if any, additional compliance burdens. California continues to remain an outlier in extending rights to workforce members and business-to-business contacts and in containing any sort of private right of action.

View larger image

Consumer Rights

Similar to Utah's privacy law, the Iowa law does not have a "right to correct," and a consumer's right to delete is limited to the data the organization obtained from the consumer. Iowa also follows Utah in its approach to children's data – a controller cannot process such data unless it complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), 15 U.S.C. Section 6501 et seq. – which creates a significant gray area since COPPA applies only to personal information collected directly from the child via an online service. The Iowa law does not offer consumers a right to opt out of profiling or other automated decision-making.

View larger image

Request Submission and Handling

Unlike California's and Colorado's laws, the Iowa law does not contain a lot of specificity as to the process for submitting consumer requests. Iowa's new law closely parallels Virginia's and Utah's, although Iowa's expands the timeline to respond to consumer requests from 45 days to 90 days.

View larger image

Information Governance

Similar to Utah's legislation, the Iowa law is light on internal requirements for the management of data, including that there is explicit purpose of processing limitation or requirement for data minimization. The Iowa law also does not require organizations to conduct data protection assessments.

View larger image

Enforcement

Iowa follows the trend in providing that violations of its new privacy law will be enforced only by its state attorney general and not civil litigants. Iowa offers time to cure violations, and the 90-day period offered is longer than those of other states. Violations of the law are punishable by civil penalties of up to $7,500 for each violation. California continues to be the only state to allow a private right of action – limited to certain types of data breaches only.

Calling for higher pay, about 430 unionized employees are on strike at an Iowa Case New Holland plant in Burlington.

After negotiating with the agriculture and construction machinery maker for 2 1/2 months, United Auto Workers leaders called the strike at noon Monday, the largest walkout in Iowa since the UAW's Deere & Co. employees went on strike last fall.

In addition to the workers at the Burlington factory, about 600 UAW members at a Case New Holland plant in Racine, Wisconsin, also are on strike.

The strike started 36 hours after the last contract between the UAW and Case New Holland Industrial — CNHi, for short — expired Sunday morning. The union and the company extended the old contract on an "hour by hour" basis before the strike.

UAW Vice President Chuck Browning said in a statement that Case New Holland failed to meet the union's requirements. A UAW spokesperson declined to comment on what the union is asking for or how much employees earned per hour under the previous contract.

“Our members at CNHi strike for the ability to earn a decent living, retire with dignity and establish fair work rules,” Browning said. “We stay committed to bargaining until our members' goals are achieved.”

UAW President Ray Curry added in a statement that Case employees worked through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as the virus spread in 2020.

Case spokesperson Rebecca Fabian called the strike "disappointing."

“The Union’s decision creates high anxiety among our represented employees in Burlington and Racine, as well as our other employees, our customers, and our community," Fabian said in a statement. "We remain committed to reaching an agreement, and we are working to resolve this issue. We will continue to negotiate in good faith and trust that the Union will do the same.”

A look back at the Deere strike:John Deere employees approve third contract proposal, ending their five-week strike

Strike follows strong year for Case New Holland

The UAW's strike comes after union members struck Deere & Co. for a little more than a month last fall, winning a 10% hourly wage hike and the preservation of the pension program that executives planned to cut.

Browning, who leads negotiations with agricultural implement manufacturers for the UAW, does not have as much firepower behind him this time. The UAW represented about 10,000 Deere workers — about 10 times the size of the union workforce in the strike at Case New Holland.

The Burlington employees make backhoe loaders and forklift trucks, while the Wisconsin workers make tractors and transmission systems.

As with Deere, the strike comes as Case New Holland celebrates a strong year. With high corn and soybean prices, as well as increased construction demand because of the federal government's COVID-19 relief spending, it reported a $1.76 billion profit in 2021 — a 21% improvement over its pre-pandemic performance in 2019.

With the money flowing, it spent heavily to lure a new chief executive. Scott Wine, who left his post atop Polaris to become Case New Holland's new CEO in January 2021, received $17.4 million last year. That is well above the $2.5 million and $1.8 million that the company paid its previous CEO in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Wine's first year of pay included several bonuses, including a signing bonus of $1.6 million, a performance bonus of $5.1 million and three installment payments that will total $7.6 million.

The strike also comes at a time when the union members' wages don't go as far as they used to. Core inflation — prices for goods other than food and energy — was up about 6% in March compared to the same time last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In turn, wages for workers have been rising. The average agriculture, construction and mining machinery manufacturing employee in the United States made about $1,248 a week as of February. That's up about $86 — or 7% — from the same time last year.

But unionized workers at manufacturers like Case New Holland often don't see wage increases until they negotiate a new contract.

UAW Local 807 President Nick Guernsey, who represents workers at the Iowa factory, told the Burlington Hawkeye that an assembler's starting hourly wage under the most recent agreement was $20.89. That is $1.24 less per hour than the starting wage for the lowest-level unionized Deere employees, according to the contract members approved in November.

Guernsey said starting wages for workers at some non-unionized Case New Holland factories are $5.50 per hour higher than those at the Burlington factory. He said the union is looking to increase wages by at least that much.

"Bread, milk, gas is going through the roof," he said. "Everything's going up — everything but our wages."

Guernsey added that, last month, he thought the two sides would reach an agreement before the union called a strike. But over the weekend, he said the company bused in non-union workers.

"I'm not really sure where the fallback came," he said.

Fabian, the Case New Holland spokesperson, declined to comment on the details of the negotiation or if the company has brought in replacement workers.

Before the pandemic, strikes of this scope were rare in Iowa. The Deere strike is the largest on record in the state, according to statistics that stretch to 1993. Previous major work stoppages include strikes of 1,600 workers at the now-defunct Maytag Corp. in 2001 and 2004. About 1,200 United Brotherhood of Carpenters members went on strike for four days in Iowa in 2001.

In February, about 400 employees at defense contractor Eaton-Cobham Mission Systems went on strike in Davenport for about a month.

Smaller strike looming in Cedar Rapids

Also in eastern Iowa, a union warned Sunday that its members will strike ready-mix concrete manufacturer King's Material.

According to a filing with a mediator, Teamsters Locals 238 and 371 represent about 30 employees in Cedar Rapids and Eldridge.

The previous contract, which expired at the end of Saturday, paid workers $22.45 an hour, according to a news release from Teamsters Local 238. Union leaders added that any wage less than $25.70 would represent a decrease in "earning power over the last decade."

"Workers are tired of living paycheck to paycheck in a market that grossly underpays their employees," Teamsters Local 238 Secretary-Treasurer Jesse Case said in a statement. "Wages in the concrete industry in the Cedar Rapids market have remained stagnant for years and quite frankly, I'm surprised the industry has gone this long without a strike."

According to the Quad City Times, King's Material previously locked out four Teamsters members at an Eldridge location when the company and the union reached an impasse on a contract in 2013.

The Teamsters and company managers began negotiating a new agreement March 28.

Hawk Eye reporter Michaele Niehaus contributed to this report. She can be reached at [email protected].

Tyler Jett covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at [email protected], 515-284-8215, or on Twitter at @LetsJett.

SIOUX CENTER—Nothing says summer more than an armload of zinnias. Or sunflowers. Or ranunculus. Or gladiolas.

The list could go on for one Sioux Center farmer in her first year offering fresh cut flowers to the community through her new business Holland Flower Farm.

“This is a dream come true,” said owner Jade Van Holland. “I made an Instagram post last summer of a bouquet of flowers from my garden, saying I’d like to have a flower farm some day. It’s so amazing to see it here.”

So far this summer she’s sold most of her limited product through Instagram posts, but she’s planning to be part of the Sioux Center Farmers Market for the first time this week. The farmers market is 9 a.m.-1 p.m. each Wednesday through September at the Centre Mall.

Love for plants

Having a degree in agriculture missions from Dordt University, Van Holland said she thought she’d be working in a foreign mission field by now.

“I realized in all that I did, gardening seemed to be calling me though,” she said.

College internships in Denver, Visalia, CA, and Honduras involved a gardening aspect and grew her love for the hands-on work. Following college, Van Holland worked at Green World in Sioux Center.

“Even though it was for a short time, the plant knowledge just stuck with me,” she said. “I couldn’t shake this love for plants.”

That led her to take a master gardening course through Iowa State University Extension. While working the past three years in an administrative assistant role for Dordt, her interest in plants continued to grow.

“I’ve always loved to garden and being able to produce my own products from food to cut flowers for me house,” she said. “A big part of it in the past couple of years is that I was feeling guilty for wanting to plant more flowers into my garden. As my role became more of an office position, I found myself looking out the window a lot. I felt it was time to get my hands back in the dirt.”

Then came her Instagrm post of a bouquet she made with flowers from her garden, which led to several conversations and encouraging words and ultimately to tilling up her first two 50-by-50-foot plots on her parents Ryan and Sue Moret’s acreage four miles east of Sioux Center last fall.

After taking a six-week online course in flower farming during the winter, she added a third 50-by-50-foot plot in the spring.

New career path

Many reasons factored into the new career path.

“I realized if somebody could do this for the lowest input costs, it’s probably our family,” she said. “My parents had land not being used for production. My husband [Kyle Van Holland] also is an irrigation specialist so he understands tiling and access to equipment and supplies.”

That means nearly all her flower beds are tiled and have drip irrigation.

“It’s been a lot of work, more hours than I originally thought but I love it,” Van Holland said. “At the end of the day I”m happy and I want my daughter to see I have a career that I enjoy.”

“My parents focused on careers that were able to sustain our family, but they weren’t necessarily things they loved to do or would have chosen to do,” Van Holland continued. “When I had my daughter, wanted her to see her mom loving to go to work every day, loving what she does, see that passion.”

Van Holland and her husband are also foster parent; their niche is working with teens.

“Because day care is so incredibly challenging to find out here, I also wanted to find a career where we could continue to foster but the kids could stay with me,” Van Holland said. “Being my own business owner, our foster placements can come out to the farm with me, get their hands involved. My hope is that it gives them freedom to express themselves because at my home garden, we find that a lot of conversation happens in the garden.”

Dreaming big

Van Holland is starting small, selling to some local florists as well as through Instagram.

“I can’t meet demand,” she said. “People are so excited about this. It makes me happy. I hope that continues because it’s really fun to see my flowers are a part of people’s lives.”

Van Holland said her flowers have already been used “in some super special ways.”

“To some people they’re just flowers, to others you don’t know the way that flower has touched someone — maybe it’s their favorite flower or favorite color, that just seeing the flower has such a bigger meaning,” she said. “It’s fun to see where my flowers get used, what joy they can bring to people.”

Future plans include offering bulk buckets for DIY projects possibly this fall and weekly flower subscriptions next year in which a customer would buy a share for a certain amount of weeks in exnchange for a bouquet of flowers each of those weeks. Other plans include make-and-take workshops at the flower farm. Her biggest dream would be to have a flower truck to take her flower arranging on the road to special events.

“It can’t hurt to dream big,” she said. “If it can start in such a really wet year, it’s got to get better each year from here right? My friends, family and the community has been so encouraging, I can’t wait to see where this takes me.”