Rainforest: Mistrust ran deep

Rainforest: Mistrust ran deep

As the rainforest continues its death rattle, the Gazette offers several juicy tidbits:

City and area economic development leaders here wanted the $180 million Environmental Project rain forest’s executive director to resign quietly in April after they saw no tangible progress in fundraising and project planning, a document The Gazette obtained reveals.

The request that David Oman resign as executive director came from leaders of the Iowa City/Coralville Convention and Visitors Bureau, Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce and Iowa City Area Development Group and was supported by Coralville City officials, a briefing written in April by those groups and interviews indicate...

Coralville’s local legislators told city and economic leaders they were ‘‘the laughingstock’’ of the Legislature and had serious communication problems with Oman. They also said they would not support any Vision Iowa grant application for the rain forest unless Oman was replaced.

Nice work by Zack Kucharski, one of the better local reporters.

Of course, 18 long months ago I noted that the real problem was the thing looked too much like the giant egg incubator from Godzilla vs. Mothra.