Iowa City Daily News Links: Reading the Tea Party Tea Leaves, Iowa City Council Candidate Forum, and Finally a Caucus Date

From this site

The Tea Party will likely affect the election in some way, but ?

We have a up from yesterday's Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce's Iowa City Council Candidate forum. Gregg Hennigan of the Gazette had a writeup of the event here.

Looks like Iowa Caucuses on Jan. 3. Commence thousands of media people groaning about their ruined New Year's Eve parties.

We asked some local store owners what the have been so far this October.

We have a nice gallery up march on downtown this Saturday.

Meet Carolina, a who is our adopt this pet of the week.

From other sites

Lee Hermiston of the Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that an attorney for a man accused of murder wants the trial moved out of Iowa City.

Asmaa Elkeurti of the Daily Iowan writes that the Johnson County Crisis Center has been serving more people in need lately.

Matt Starns of the Daily Iowan writes about how Occupy Iowa City protesters are balancing fighting for what they believe with real life concerns.

Gregg Hennigan of the Gazette writes that the city of Iowa City is looking at a Highway 1 bypass.

Josh O'Leary of the Press-Citizen writes about an event intended to gather community comments about an audit of the Iowa City school district's finances.

If you hadn't heard already, Hy-Vee pulled some bagged salads from its stores due to possible listeria contamination.

Rod Boshart, of the Gazette, writes that the 2013 Iowa State budget process will be challenging, but likely less contentious than last year. Also, why is Rod Boshart the only person on that site who doesn't use paragraphs?

So the Iowa Caucus is now Jan. 3. What happens with Nevada and New Hampshire now? Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register ponders.

Daily Links Excerpt (of the Day):Lawmakers already have plugged in a 2 percent “allowable growth” increase for K-12 schools next year and have funded about 86 percent of the fiscal 2013 spending plan through a new commitment to biennial budgeting. However, the proposed spending does not include any new money for Branstad’s education reforms he wants lawmakers to consider next session and projects human services increases to top $161.6 million – climbing from over $1.5 billion this year to a projected $1.668 billion next year that reflects higher Medicaid costs linked to the prolonged economic downturn.

“It’s going to be a challenging year, but it’s not such a challenge where you’re looking at a $900 million deficit (like the governor and Legislature faced a year ago),” Roederer said. “When you’re spending other people’s money, it should always be a challenging year. I think all people working on budgets and elected officials need to closely scrutinize all spending and to make sure that taxpayers get the most of the tax dollars that they provide.”