Editorial: For public dialogue

Our thanks to Bill Miller, attorney for the City of Storm Lake, for finally attempting to put the discussion of lost tax collections where it belongs — squarely in the public realm since this is our money the county and city are fighting over. Please read Miller’s letter in response to our Dec. 27 editorial praising Buena Vista County Supervisor Kathy Croker, R-Lake Creek, for seeking an open dialogue that serves the taxpayer. Most important, we noted, was that Croker is the first public official we’ve heard apologize for misallocating to the wrong municipalities some $5 million(?) in tax increment financing revenues that should have gone to Storm Lake over a period of years.

Croker talked plain sense. Now comes Miller with a sensible response.

The city states a claim for public consideration: It will take $5 million to clear the decks over an untold amount of money that the county mistakenly sent to other units of government, like presumably the school district.

The letter also said that the county may pick any elected city official it would like to negotiate an amicable deal with Croker, who said she wants to talk, in the absence of lawyers.

This is a foot-on-the-brake moment before this freight train hits the cliff.

The county should take the city’s offer. Immediately. For the sake of the public: The citizens of Storm Lake will be suing themselves.

If you’re the county auditor or a supervisor, you want this problem to go away. If you’re a city councilor, you sorely need the money with waterpark repairs in the offing. We need to get back to business here.

We don’t need a lawsuit, we need a deal.

That is not legal advice, it is political advice. This remains a political question that through misdirection became a legal question.

If you want to see heads roll, march in front of the judge. Nobody will get all their money back. If you want to mow the parks and gravel the roads, cut your losses and get on with keeping the dust down around the soy crush plant. The city needs to fix its water system before we all go thirsty and broke. No water, no Tyson, no Tyson no jobs.

In our editorial cited by Miller, we said that Croker is the first public official to call for a public dialogue. Miller describes that as a “mischaracterization,” and that the city has sought transparency all along. It is news to us that the city asked the county for a public discussion of their claims, as Miller writes to his peer representing the county. We plead guilty to a “misapprehension” born of deliberate attempts by city and county officials to close the door on the public from having a keen understanding of what actually happened.

We still don’t know. We still suffer from many misapprehensions because that’s the way things get spun when we hand over democracy to the lawyers. Nothing against lawyers. They cannot do the job that politicians were elected to do, which is to keep track of public funds and report back to the public. We commend Miller for putting the issue where it belongs, and we eagerly await the county’s reply.

The county and city, if they put their heads together, could order the lawyers to useful work by suing their insurance companies. The county has had a terrible time with its insurance coverage. The city should get covered under Errors and Omissions — if sending $5 million to the wrong account is not an error and whopping omission then we do not know what anything means anymore.

The insurance companies have their own definitions. They should be tested.

Maybe this has been all hashed over before. It could be an elaborate legal strategy, for all we know. City sues the county so the county can sue its insurer so the insurer … or something like that. How could we know in Buena Vista — which means “Beautiful Shroud” in lawyer Latin — where these matters are left to those who know better behind closed doors? There is a city position and a county position, each with their own lawyers, and yet the public has no advocate at the table. The public has paid these insurance companies to insure us from human accident — that is what this whole issue is (we think, since the government still hasn’t told us the whole story because they haven’t bothered to figure it all out yet).

We paid premiums. We paid taxes. We deserve to know. We have a claim. It is a public claim: Where is our money going, and for what? Why do we pay insurance companies for nothing? Was this a software glitch? Is that the outfit we should chase? And, again the refrain to coda: Where did our money go?