Opinion

Citizens of Storm Lake will go to the polls on Nov. 3  with the rare opportunity to decide whether or not City Hall needs a change in direction. All three challenging candidates have indicated they would like to ask questions and see changes occur. We can only surmise that returning the incumbents will provide status quo (more of the same). Citizens have a choice!

Voters in Buena Vista County go to the polls Nov. 3 to decide on city council candidates and to answer a ballot question: In Storm Lake, should the sunset on the local option 1% sales tax be lifted permanently? And, in Buena Vista County shall the sunset be extended from 2020 to 2035? The answer to the question, whether you live in Storm Lake or in an unincorporated area, must be yes. Local government has come to depend on the local sales tax revenue and would be cast into a fiscal crisis without the revenue.

BY ART CULLEN

US Education Secretary Arne Duncan proposes free community college tuition as the asscociate’s or vo-tech degree is the contemporary equivalent of the high school diploma for my generation (Class of 1975). That’s sparked a discussion in the national presidential race over whether community colleges should be free.

Essayist Richard Doak of Indianola wrote in The Des Moines Sunday Register on Oct. 17 that Iowa needs to hook up its community colleges to its high schools because the diploma just won’t cut it anymore.

BY DON BEHM

Pope Francis announced he would probably only serve as pope for abut four more years. He would also like one day for no one to know him as pope and he could just go buy a pizza. This made me think I should write about being Catholic.

I’m sick of allowing the mainstream media to continue to try and brainwash you all, so here’s my attempt to assist in offering a clear picture of the Democratic race to the presidency. Let me start with reminding you Bill Clinton admitted to having sexual relations with an intern. Imagine if he, like most wanted, hell DEMANDED, stepped down from office at that time.

BY ART CULLEN

Municipal elections are non-partisan. They are not organized around political parties, at least not in Storm Lake. Yet it appears that two tickets are taking shape in the city council elections this November: challengers v. status quo. The challengers say they want to ask questions about how city hall has been run. The incumbents are left only to defend the administration and their own record.

BY ART CULLEN

Poll after poll — the latest coming Monday from The Wall Street Journal/NBC News — should give Iowa Democrats pause about for whom they caucus. Hillary Clinton trails Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush, and narrowly leads Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders is in a statistical dead heat with Fiorina and Bush, and leads Trump comfortably. (For his part, the more people get to kmow The Donald the less they like him; his support among Iowa Republicans has been dropping in recent weeks in favor of Fiorina and Ben Carson.)

BY ART CULLEN

Woe is us. We have heard it all growing season. Prices are down. Rents and inputs are up. It’s gonna be bad. On a beautiful Oct. 3 The Des Moines Sunday Register rang in the morning with the headline: “Outlook for making money on fall harvest remains grim. Ag sector weakness weighing down rest of Iowa economy.”

It ain’t necessarily so.

Word is that the beans from good ground are coming in at 70 bushels per acre. From Storm Lake to Algona, at least. My St. Mary’s arithmetic says that is $600 per acre, give or take.

BY DON BEHM

I was watching TV and there was a program about drinking coffee. They said that drinking four cups of coffee a day can reduce our chances of developing cancer. The report did not mention if this applied to regular and decaf coffees.  Both Jean and I drink close to four cups a day.

BY ART CULLEN