Opinion

CAPITOL LETTERS

BY STATE SENATOR MARK SEGEBART

R-District 6

BY ART CULLEN

EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK

BY ART CULLEN

President Trump wants to unravel the rope that binds Buena Vista County’s economy by announcing over the weekend that he intends to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

My views on the “City of Storm Lake” and on their idea of “Mandatory Garbage Hauling.”

I am a widowed senior, part-time resident of Storm Lake. I don’t generate enough garbage for weekly garbage pickup. Instead I haul my own garbage down to the recycle center south of town.

CAPITOL LETTERS

BY STATE REPRESENTATIVE GARY WORTHAN

District 11, R-Storm Lake

A shortened week two of the 2017 session is nearly completed. The Legislature was not in session on Monday due to the Martin Luther King holiday and with several of our legislative leaders obliged to attend the inauguration in Washington D.C., Friday was a short day.

CAPITOL LETTERS

BY STATE REPRESENTATIVE DAN A. HUSEMAN 

R-District 3, Aurelia

The first session of the 87th Iowa General Assembly began at 10 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 9.  The first day of a session is very ceremonial, filled with leadership elections and speeches.  Elected members are administered the oath of office, and are required to sign the Iowa Constitution.  The afternoon session begins with the selection of seats, and ends with meetings and caucuses.

BY ART CULLEN

We have always believed in divided government. Not sheer dysfunction like we have in Washington, but strong checks and balances like we have enjoyed over much of the past half-century in Des Moines. Terry Branstad almost always had Don Avenson or Mike Gronstal to keep him from his worst mistakes. Tom Vilsack had to deal with Chris Rants. It was healthy, with no big lurches one way or the other. Everything in moderation. Iowa has done well by it. Now, one party controls the levers from Des Moines to Washington. That’s not healthy.

FILLERS

BY JOHN CULLEN

This column is being typed entirely with my right hand, since I broke my left wrist in the aftermath of last week’s freezing rain that turned the entire area into an ice rink.

I am a senior living by myself. I have less than one bag of a trash a month. I buy a pack of tickets of ten for $42.50 from Garbage Hauling Service. I’m on for once a week pickup, low volume. My last pack was purchased in May 2016. I still have six left. About $3 a month. I sure would hate my rate to go to $20 a month. For what? If it were prorated for one pickup a month that might work. I wouldn’t like paying for three empty tubs a month.

BILL BRUGGER

Storm Lake

By GARRISON KEILLOR

And so the Boy President heads for Washington to be sworn into office, pumping his fist, mooning the media, giving the stinky finger to whomever irks him, doing his end zone dance, promising to build the wall, cut taxes, create jobs, provide great health insurance for EVERYONE, send his son-in-law to the Middle East to solve that little problem, and the rest of us will sit in a barn and keep ourselves warm and hide our heads under our wings, poor things. Discouraging.