First legislative briefing will be Saturday

The first legislative briefing of the year will be this Saturday in Washington. The briefing will last from 10 a.m. to noon on the second floor of the Washington County Courthouse. Locals will be able to ask questions of their elected representatives in the Iowa Legislature. State Representative Jarad Klein (R) and State Senator Sandra Greiner (R) are scheduled to attend.

Greiner is the ranking member of the economic development committee. In an interview Tuesday, Greiner said her committee will likely take up the issue of TIF districts owing to the large number of complaints about them in recent years. She said some of the complaints stem from the city of Coralville attempting to lure a Von Maur department store from Iowa City.

Greiner is also on the veteran affairs committee and agricultural committees, and she plans to discuss her progress on those committees Saturday. However, she said she will not have a full week of committees until next week.

?Last week was mostly listening to speeches,? she said. ?Tomorrow we?ll have the state of the National Guard speech in the morning, so we?ll have another morning without committees. It takes a while to get the wheels turning.?

Greiner said that from talking to her constituents she has heard a lot of interest in revising commercial property taxes.

?There was a bill that made a good stab at it last year but it didn?t make it through the process,? she said. ?That?s an issue I expect to hear about.?

At a few of the legislative briefings in 2011, the issue of preschool funding was brought up by several audience members including multiple teachers and school staff. Greiner said she does not expect preschool to be an issue this year because Gov. Terry Branstad?s educational proposals have taken preschool off the table.

There will be two more legislative briefings in the year ? one in February and one in March. There are held the third Saturday of those months.

The issues discussed at the legislative briefing last year included a proposal by the governor to increase the casino tax from 22 to 36 percent. Klein and Greiner said they were opposed to the casino tax increase.

The legislators talked about a proposed rail service from Iowa City to Chicago, which Klein said he was opposed to. Klein and Greiner also spoke in favor of tax cuts. Greiner said that tax cut can actually increase revenue by promoting economic growth. In response to a question about schools, Klein said the best thing for schools is to be full of students, which he said was only possible if businesses were allowed to grow.

Last year, members of the audience asked the legislators their thoughts on issues such as tobacco use prevention and project labor agreements. Klein said the anti-smoke group ?Just Eliminate Lies? was not using money efficiently and that it needed to be held accountable. Klein and Greiner said they opposed mandating project labor agreements and was pleased that Branstad had signed an executive order that rescinded an executive order by former Gov. Chet Culver mandating project labor agreements.