Action alert by CCI (Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement) –  Check out their website and sign up for their weekly organizing letter.

To be as powerful, strategic and effective as possible, CCI Action needs you!

Join, donate today and your gift will support work that stands up against corporate power, supports an end to racist policing, builds Iowa communities that are resilient in the face of climate change, and wins Medicare for All!

Polk County – take action on ARP$ this week

The recent win in Johnson county to establish an Excluded Workers Fund shows us that when we organize everyday people we can win real investments in our communities and for our people.

In Polk county, Supervisors are currently soliciting input from the community and holding forums to help shape how Polk county uses its roughly $95 million in American Rescue Plan money.

Another lesson from the work in Johnson county is that unless people speak up, the voices of everyday people, and especially people of color and marginalized communities, will be left out of the decision-making process.

Make your voice heard! Attend the next forum on Economic Well-Being Dec. 8 to support our Immigrant Rights Team to ask for an essential and excluded worker fund in Polk County. We will be masking up and meeting at the CCI office to prep at 8am before going to the Supervisor forum at 9:30am. Let us know if you can join by registering here.

Can’t make it in person? You can still attend the forum virtually by clicking here. And, make sure you take their survey here on how the county should allocate ARP funding before it closes on December 31.

Not in Polk county? Contact your city council and county supervisors and find out how they’re engaging their constituents in decisions as to how pandemic relief money is being spent.

Were you shortchanged by Reynolds?

Were you receiving federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) but got your benefits cut off early by Governor Reynolds? We might be able to help you retrieve the money you were owed. Some smart legal allies of ours are working on strategies to make sure people who were owed that federal support get it back. And they’re looking for people like you to help make it happen.

So if you received federal unemployment benefits but got that benefit cut in June by Gov. Reynolds, call Lisa at 515.282.0484 or send an email to lisa@iowacci.org and we’ll connect you to the right folks.

Protect Iowa’s Land and Water: Say No to Navigator Pipeline

Another greenwashing scheme threatens 36 of Iowa’s counties.

Navigator Heartland Greenway LLC is proposing a large-scale carbon capture pipeline that would cut through Iowa from Lee to Lyon counties, with several branches along the way. Public informational meetings are currently underway – click here to find the meeting closest to you.

These meetings are excellent organizing opportunities – it’s a chance to meet landowners in the pipeline’s path as well as other concerned residents who want to stop the pipeline. Let us know if you plan to attend and how you can help! Contact Lisa at lisa@iowacci.org or 515.282.0484.

These are a few links that are informing our work – we’ve shared them so that you can read, too! 

Climate change is making it harder to provide clean drinking water in farm country (featuring CCI member Janis Elliot) [Iowa Public Radio]

The Corporate Plan to Murder Medicare Runs Through Medicare Advantage [Common Dreams]

The Betrayal of Roe [New York Magazine]

Liberals Are Increasingly Embarking on Dangerous Flights from Reality [Jacobin]

What Rep. Massie’s Christmas photo says about today’s GOP [CNNIowa has $141 million in undistributed federal rent and utility aid. The US Treasury might take funds back [Des Moines Register]