When dealing with the Iowa Public Information Board, being a mind-reader helps. That is one takeaway from the board’s dismissal last week of a public-records complaint against Attorney General …

Succession planning and public celebration typically accompany executive retirements. They provide for an orderly leadership transition and public acknowledgment of a job well done. So, two …

In recent weeks, people from Cherokee, Des Moines and Ottumwa have contacted the Iowa Freedom of Information Council with concerns about the refusal of local officials to share documents distributed …

You would think a school district readily knows its A-B-Cs. nnNot the Des Moines Public Schools — at least not when informing the public what its 6,600 employees were paid during the academic year …

Game shows have one virtue Iowa’s open-records enforcement system does not: Winners and losers know on the spot what prizes are theirs to keep. Hendrik Van Pelt learned this firsthand.  …

The Iowa Supreme Court typically opens its rulings on the state’s public-records and open-meetings laws by reciting that the cases start with a “presumption of openness.”  But a new …

Novelist Charles Dickens poked his quill pen at government bureaucracy 175 years ago with his accounts about a fictionalized department he called the "Circumlocution Office.”  …

When District Judge Adria Kester studied at the Drake University Law School, she must have opted out of the “Law of Holes” coursework. I have written before about the first Law of Holes, in …

Whether you work for the federal, state or local government, you best just accept that blame and criticism go with the job and move ahead. Decatur County Attorney Alan Wilson learned that lesson …

Buried words, like buried treasures, sometimes surprise and enrich. But buried landmines only create problems now, and later. Such is the case with a passage buried in a 71-page Iowa Supreme …

As Americans celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday with parades, speeches, fireworks and other patriotic traditions, much attention will focus on familiar symbols of our history — monuments, …

It has been a while since you heard a United States leader say, “The fault is mine alone.” If you visit Abilene, Kansas, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum offers countless …

Here we go again. If the University of Iowa and Iowa attorney general's office get their way, a legacy gift from a grateful and accomplished graduate will no longer help students like him. …

Here’s betting District Judge Adria Kester does not read the Aspen Daily News. That Colorado newspaper’s front-page slogan declares, “If you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen.” …

My lunchtime conversation with an old friend recently never got to the Major League Baseball races, the WNBA or Caitlin Clark. We skipped over the weather and never got around to how corn and soybean …

Because of his intimidating style, the legendary 1950s baseball pitcher Sal Maglie was known as “The Barber.” His brush-back pitches came sooooo close batters felt as if they were getting a …

At the risk of blurring the increasingly fuzzy line between church and state, here is a Gospel reading for public employees and elected officials, according to Matthew:  “But blessed are …

Come July, Iowa employers may want to add an ominous warning on their job application forms: tell a lie and you could go to jail. That’s right — no more puffing the resume with false degrees …

Noah Petersen and Priscilla Villarreal live 1,200 miles from each other, Petersen in Newton, Iowa; Villarreal in Laredo, Texas. They share a key connection despite that distance. Each has …

City leaders in Des Moines are making it difficult to understand why they selected the new police chief, considering how they have imposed a code of silence about their recent $975,000 payout to one …