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“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
The Buena Vista County Bar Association believes the citizens of Buena Vista County deserve to have their elected and appointed representatives take a hard look at the decisions being made in the litigation between Buena Vista County and the City of Storm Lake concerning the alleged misappropriation of TIF funds over a 12-year period.
To date, the Des Moines firms have reportedly charged more than $900,000. That is more than $900,000 leaving Buena Vista County and being spent in Polk County. At a time when Storm Lake residents are concerned about deteriorating streets and other local needs, it is reasonable to ask whether this was the best use of taxpayer dollars.
The situation has now reached another troubling level. The parties are fighting over approximately $16,000 in attorney fees arising from a discovery dispute. The firm representing the City believes the County is responsible. Regardless of who ultimately prevails, we and our neighbors will bear those costs as well.
The case is still nearly a year away from trial. If the current rate of spending continues, taxpayers could see another $1 million or more sent out of our community before this case reaches a resolution. That should concern every resident of Buena Vista County, regardless of which side they believe is right on the underlying TIF dispute.
This is not an argument against a city or county vigorously defending its legal position. Public entities have a responsibility to protect the interests of their taxpayers. But that responsibility also includes exercising sound judgment about how taxpayer money is spent.
The City and County representatives must settle this case now, while they still have some control of the outcome. Spending another million dollars in legal fees to have an Emmett County Jury decide a case argued by Des Moines’ attorneys about a local accounting error is not in the best interest of the people of this community.
Buena Vista County Bar Association
It is not about “the Commies,” Cullen. Commies are the straw men. It is not about your Dad (or mine) or Henry Wallace, who loved the Soviets dearly until the early 1950s after he saw one too many of Stalin’s purges. Or, let’s call them what they truthfully were: political executions. After that, Henry lived quietly, having “lost that lovin feeling” until his death out East.
It’s ALL about the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization so radical there is no Iowa chapter west of Des Moines and Central Iowa. You’ve nibbled around the edges of that organization and its attendant ideology for years, clearly liking it.
Your recent editorial supporting Medicare For All, and others favoring incarnations of the Green New Deal are cases on point.
The medical infrastructure for MFA does not exist in the US. There would be lengthy waits, likely many months or years, for you to be seen. You might die waiting for your appointment at Mayo Urology unless you and members of your tribe are elevated for special, concierge treatment because you’re so anointed and progressively wonderful.
What happened to the Affordable Care Act? It wasn’t very affordable after those subsidies went away! Young, healthy adults do not participate, and why would they? You can spin it any way you like as universal health care, but that is the road to rationing and shortages. Look at Canada as a prima facie example.
Back to the DSA, some of the other positions are:
Folks who favor these positions are free to vote for them. However, I don’t see much support coming from Western Iowa, and that is why you are pussy-footing around the issues and explanations. If you scratch a socialist, an authoritarian or a statist bleeds from that wound.
Deep down, you know it won’t sell here. And then there is this:
“Kill them. Murder them. Let the streets soak in their red capitalist blood.” — Hasan Piker
I’ll return to that quote above, but I noticed that the Iowa and Minnesota state fairs were not exactly friendly venues for Democratic gubernatorial candidates recently. Injuries were only limited to some hurt partisan feelings.
Several weeks ago, Amy Klobuchar said she favored “order at the border.” She was met with a cacophony of jeers and guffaws at the Minnesota State Fair political forum. She was visibly angered, her pasty, unhealthy complexion turned bright red. The moderator warned the audience. Within days, Klobuchar got payback on the Farm Bill, refusing to let the bill clear the Senate Ag committee, with the Rs being several short because Mitch McConnell was busy being in a coma, but still safe from Andy Beshear’s appointment pen.
Klobuchar wants YOUR property taxes to fund SNAP (food stamp) payments. Consider that when you write checks for your Iowa property taxes in the next few weeks!
Rob Sand was heckled by several 100-pound coeds from TurningPoint Iowa. Sand was so distressed that he hid in a bathroom stall at the Iowa State Fair, calling in some Iowa State Troopers to safely extract him. It would have been delicious irony if the restroom was unisex. Sand was so befuddled that he attempted to exit the fairgrounds at the designated ENTRANCE, then having to be redirected by the state patrol, as if he were a slow child.
I have just heard a rumor that the Cook Political Report has the Iowa Governor’s race as a toss-up before Labor Day.
Moderates and Independents should watch Zach Lahn’s two hour long-form with Tucker Carlson on YouTube. If you think only one side owns the environmental debate, all should educate themselves. Zach Lahn’s environmental platform runs far deeper than your superficial manure-digester hit piece.
The Administration now has a Kennedy, and your party doesn’t! Boo hoo.
My last letter to the editor drew the attention of a certain Eastern Iowa AWFL. AWFL is an acronym for an Angry White Female Liberal. I expected some push-back, but I deny that hate is a part of my tribe, or my life, personally. I don’t hate; instead, I ridicule, and I have an enormous amount of fun doing it.
This is why I deliberately included the quote attributed to Hasan Piker and his “we are Charlie Kirk”-schtick.
Iowa Democrats are the party of Love and Joy, according to Kamala Harris, who lost that “loving feeling” by 13 points in Iowa in 2024.
The Democratic Socialists of America IS a part of the Democratic Party’s DNA. You own Hasan Piker. This is NOT about Communists. Good luck with that defection in November as you desperately search for the next Barack Obama and party savior in 2028. You are going to need it.
Wyatt Yon, Storm Lake
The USS Abraham Lincoln is moving after more than 220 days of deployment. Let’s not lose sight of harrowing conditions our sailors endure at sea.
I served in the Navy aboard an aircraft carrier. It’s not the glossy version shown in recruiting commercials, it’s hard, uncomfortable, often unhealthy, but carried out with incredible dedication and professionalism.
My berthing held 93 men packed into one space, racks stacked three high, almost no room to move, no privacy. You dressed, slept and stored your entire life in a space smaller than a coffin.
At sea, we worked 12 hour shifts, seven days a week, no days off. The ship ran nonstop, so did we. Sailors were exhausted at the end of their shift, the next day started the same way. Working on a flight deck during flight operations is considered one of the most hazardous jobs in the military.
Food and water was a struggle. Food so poor, many limited themselves to one meal a day. Some days you could see an oil slick in coffee from jet fuel contaminating drinking water. You drank anyway, you were thirsty.
I served during peacetime; two six-month deployments, only once did we go more than 30 days without a port call. I can’t imagine spending more than 220 days at sea without one.
I’m not sharing this to complain but to shed light on what service members endure keeping our country safe. Sacrifices are real, mostly made quietly by sailors who rarely get recognition.
The crew on board the USS Abraham Lincoln deserved better.
Larry Engebritson, Marion
Propaganda is the worst.
“What if I know my rights, and the government knows my rights, but they don’t care?” Spoken by Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student with a green-card who is running out of appeals against the U.S. government’s push to deport him.
TV ads in favor of vouchers, narrated and performed by a mom whose husband lost his job. Without the [education] vouchers, she says, their family would be destitute (my word). The spin doctors tell a story about a harmless white family who would perish without the education vouchers.
Step back from that. As if their struggle is more important than anyone else’s struggle. That their supposed destitution is more important than — well anyone. Her plight is formidable, the propaganda says. She is the “man down.”
Puke puke puke. Put Mahmoud’s wife and one-year-old child out there and talk about destitute. Mahmoud’s lawyers instruct him to stay inside his home. At all times. Officials know where he lives and could take him at any time. His wife asks, “Will I be deported too?” “No, you’re an American,” he answers.
And what does that mean, to be an American?
It means we drink contaminated water. It means millionaires whine about their taxes and expect us to be empathetic. Or to see that they’re being singled out.
In a race for governor of Iowa, it means the Republican candidate chastises Rob Sand for being a millionaire. Whoa, bad bad Rob. Disqualifies you too, Zach.
Americans want clean water. And for millionaires to be honest about the tax cuts they already get and have always gotten.
Being an American is not about a “dream” anymore.
Today that means President Donald Trump chooses vengeance as his life’s work.
Americans want health care, not whiny millionaires. We know millionaires get tax breaks before anyone else. Ashley Hinson’s latest mailed ad tells us we simple Iowans got three thousand dollars in tax breaks. We should kiss her shoes.
Or use the tax refund to pay for our kid to attend private school and learn that Blacks are treated equally, and learn nothing about Indigenous people already on this continent who were colonized by settlers from another continent.
And grow up to live the American Dream, which is a dying ember from a smoky fire that pollutes the air across the entire continent.
Time to take stock and accept the gaping flaws of this so-called democratic country. If we “ration justice” we are not a democracy.
Gretchen Reeh-Robinson, Mount Vernon
Though I back Sand-Muhlbauer to lead Iowa’s government, it appears that considerably more detail needs to surface about their Vision and Strategic Plan for advocating and advancing state and federal farm policies, to incentivize and strengthen the independent family-scale farm model. This is the model that retains ag income, equity and control for Iowa’s countryside benefit, for potential prosperity and stability in rural places.
The trending monocrop/CAFO production model exports ag dollars and wealth resources to non-rural interests.
Jay Howe, Greenfield
Who says politicians don’t keep their promises? Representatives Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks both promised to go to Washington to advance the Trump agenda and boy have they been loyal MAGA foot soldiers. From draconian deportations, through costly tariffs, to the pointless Iran war, and the Big Beautiful Billionaires’ Bill that is closing Iowa hospitals and clinics and taking food away from Iowa children, they’ve been there every step of the way for Donald Trump. Crazy crypto schemes, a massive AI data center build-out and the destruction of the East Wing? No problem for Ashley and Mariannette. Is this what you sent this pair to Washington for? This election can’t come fast enough.
Jim Walters, Iowa City
A friend of ours canned some of our honeycrisp apples. They taste great nearly a year after harvest. Chris Jones wrote that Iowa was the number one producer of apples. The Delicious Apple was cultivated in East Peru, Iowa. In Bulgaria we noticed that most homes had an apple tree in the yard. Iowa grows corn on at least 10 million acres of the best land in the world. Yet, billions in subsidies are needed to make it happen. Most of those Iowans who know how to can food are in nursing homes. Iowans now buy imported processed food. Some Iowans are hungry. How did this happen to those hardy farm families who built Iowa? Apple trees are magical.
Mike Delaney, Windsor Heights
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