Return to Nicholas Johnson's Coralville Rain Forest Web Site
 

Note: Here are a collection of three reproductions of stories, and commentaries, on the "Iowa Pork Forest" and by blogster "State 29," who may have some relationship to the "Iowa Pork Forest" blog. They are each from the November 10 and 11, 2005, period. If the supplied Web links to the original source are still active the reader is strongly advised to use those, rather than these reproductions, as they provide links to other material and are formatted in an easier-to-read way.

Rainforest Con-Artists DID Talk To Dubuque's Leaders

Oman's Con Game, Spelled Out

Fauxscal Conservative Grassley's $50 Million Pork Has Been Bankrolling Day-to-Day Porkforest Operations

Rainforest Negotiations A Setup?

From WHO-TV, via the Associated Press:

Iowa Organizers of an indoor rain forest project say they'll give one more shot at working a land deal in Coralville.

If that fails, they'll find another place to build their forest.

Board members of The Environmental Project decided today to continue talks to get 22 acres along Interstate 80.

But hours after that decision, city officials in Dubuque said they've already spoken with organizers about building the rainforest in their city.

That news bothered Coralville leaders, who called the organizers' actions in Dubuque inappropriate.

Wherever the rainforest is built, organizers predict it will become a major tourist attraction.
 

The Coralville City Council should tell David Oman and Bob "Filthy" Ray to f*** off and take their stupid rainforest somewhere else. It's long overdue.

You think it's bad now? Wait until the thing is being constructed and there's cost overruns. Who do you think is going to be paying for that?

Related: Rainforest Negotiations A Setup? and Fauxscal Conservative Grassley's $50 Million Pork Has Been Bankrolling Day-to-Day Porkforest Operations and Oman's Con Game, Spelled Out

posted by Editor @ 9:23 PM

From KWWL:

The rain forest project is expected to cost $180 million. If the land donation from Coralville goes through and if the federal grant stays, that's worth $100 million.

Project organizers say they will work with the city to get $20 million from Vision Iowa. Oman says they also need $20 million from local donors. And $20 million from corporations.

Oman says a loan against the land would pay the rest of the bill.

One key is inking a deal with Coralville for the land. "The direction from the board is to see one more time if we can work out some of these issues with Coralville."

Oman says there are no plans to move the project out of Coralville, but that could change, if project organizers and the city can't make a deal.

A $40 million loan against the land? With what??????? How's that going to be paid off?

$20 million from Vision Iowa?

$20 million from local donors? $20 million from corporations? They've had six years to raise money and have come up with nothing.

And how does the project continue to be $180 million after the last few years? Isn't inflation ever factored, or will that be factored on the back end?

posted by Editor @ 7:49 PM

Buried within today's story in the Iowa City Press-Citizen about how Chief Con-man Oman and his gang of taxpayer teet-sucking sycophants have pledged to keep working with Coralville (despite rumors that the Rainforest Gods had been in discussions with people in Des Moines, Grinnell, and Dubuque), is this:

The grant had been bankrolling the day-to-day operations, with about $2.9 million drawn on the grant. Oman said a number of options were being pursued for funding operations, including seeing if project founder Ted Townsend would front more than the $10 million he initially put forth.

Isn't that great? Senator Chuck Grassley, the fauxscal conservative, essentially kept this stupid project afloat thanks to putting it on the country's charge card. Thanks a lot, Senator Pork.

A trustworthy reader in Marion also emailed us (but not confirmed yet via news reports published on the internet, although it will be eventually) that the Cedar Rapids Gazette is reporting that Oman expects the City of Coralville to help raise an additional $20 million for the project. Kelly Hayworth, the City Manager of Coralville, took umbrage at being blindsided by that. When we get the text of that news report, we'll put it out there.

How convenient that David Oman, the Chief Con-Man of the Rainforest Project, would leave out such a suggestion until after the re-election of the Coralville City Council, none of whom were challenged in the voting booth.

Once again, here are the politicians in Coralville who continue to be in favor of this project. They are the ones who have allowed the country's charge card to be used to the tune of $50 million by Senator Grassley. They are the ones who may put other projects in Iowa at risk because of the seeking of $20 million of Vision Iowa money. And they are the ones who are putting Coralville residents at risk for thousands of dollars in increased taxes because Oman hasn't been able to raise a single dime of private money in six years other than Ted Townsend's initial $10 million pledge:
 

Jim Fausett, Mayor
Phone: 319-351-6338
Email: jfausett@ci.coralville.ia.us
 

John Lundell, Council member
Phone: 319-351-1125
Email: jlundell@ci.coralville.ia.us
 

John Weihe, Council member
Phone: 319-338-1159
Email: jweihe@ci.coralville.ia.us
 

Henry Herwig, Council member
Phone: 319-351-3119
Email: hherwig@ci.coralville.ia.us
 

Update: Not only does today's Register not report on yesterday's meeting of the Rainforest con-artists and the Coralville City Council members in the Amanas, but they offer up a wimpy-assed editorial that agrees with Grassley putting a two year deadline on the $50 million $47.1 million grant. Naturally, they're still in favor of the Rainforest and regret regret regret regret that this had to be done. Ah well. What do you expect from central Iowa's monopoly corporate media outlet that continues to kiss David Oman's ass, fails to look at the project critically, and continues to support this con-game? It's also the same Register that runs Oman's wife's column [http://www.jenniferlockoman.com/]. What a bunch of crap.

A reader pointed us to this piece in the Cedar Rapids Gazette's free section:

CORALVILLE, IA - Some City Council members here say additional negotiations with the group planning to build the $180 million indoor rain forest is a set-up by the project to force negotiations into an impasse and allow the project to move elsewhere.

Council members suspect the project, which is any day expected to provide the city with conditions the city is to meet if the project is to be located here, will raise demands for land and other assistance to levels Coralville can't meet.

''My view of this is they're sending something back to us that we can't accept so that we're the bad guys and they have to leave,'' said City Council member Tom Gill. ''This whole thing is a setup to make us look bad. We keep going back and forth trying to work it, and it just hasn't been working.''

The city sent a list of its terms to project leadership in late August and has since been waiting for a counter-proposal. Board members met Thursday in Amana and told the project's executive director David Oman to once again attempt negotiations with Coralville.

Gill probably has a point in that he's frustrated at being treated like some minor league chump by Oman and his gang of hoity-toity con-artists, but in all honesty we don't see where the rainforest is going to go.

Des Moines? Not a chance. Taxpayers are bogged down with so many projects in Polk County that this couldn't possibly fly.

Davenport? Impossible without all the cities on both sides of the Mississippi banding together, and that ain't ever gonna happen.

Grinnell? You're joking.

Dubuque? They're going to be too busy paying $80+ million for a municipal communications utility that will lose money so a few residents can pay $35 a month to download MP3s, waReZ, and pr0n instead of $40 a month. Plus it isn't along a major interstate.

We can't guess on Tom Gill's hunch, but we think that if Oman and the con-artists behind the Rainforest turn the tables and issue a whole bunch of time-sensitive demands on the Coralville City Council then we think the news media in Iowa and the taxpayers in Coralville should raise holy hell against the following idiots for not recognizing that they're being strung along:
 

Jim Fausett, Mayor
Phone: 319-351-6338
Email: jfausett@ci.coralville.ia.us
 

John Lundell, Council member
Phone: 319-351-1125
Email: jlundell@ci.coralville.ia.us
 

John Weihe, Council member
Phone: 319-338-1159
Email: jweihe@ci.coralville.ia.us
 

Henry Herwig, Council member
Phone: 319-351-3119
Email: hherwig@ci.coralville.ia.us