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Buena Vista County dismisses significant public preferences by insisting on developing the Storm Lake Marina for offices housing conservation department officials. We would like lakefront offices but have to settle with a view of the railroad tracks. The county can do as it wishes without regard for the public.
The Storm Lake Marina was developed to offer amenities for recreation: fishing, boating, swimming, eating and drinking. That is what the public wants, according to surveys by a task force that has tried to work with the county on developing the deteriorated property.
The county took over the marina through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which does not like the idea of beer drinking despite the state holding a liquor monopoly. Offices and stuffed animals would be preferred. Substantial people made serious proposals to offer amenities as a vendor and were rebuffed by the government authorities with an aversion to fun and profit but with a proclivity to levy taxes and fees.
If you could skim a profit from a functioning marina, which is done elsewhere, that would help maintain the property. The county is relying on the taxpayer to keep things up. Government officials who do not have to factor profit and loss in their course of business, and therefore may not have a full appreciation, do not believe a private vendor can be profitable. Successful business people who were willing to invest felt otherwise.
Profit and loss are almost beside the point. The message is that the government can ignore what most of the people want. The public elects officials who appoint bureaucrats who disregard what the public demands. The county wants nice offices. They could rent some across the street from the courthouse but lakefront is more attractive. Nice warehousing space to boot, and nobody will bother.
It remains to be seen how the place will be maintained without appreciable revenue.
The board of supervisors has influence with the conservation board but would prefer to avoid a dust-up so things go ambling away as they do, and a stuffed beaver will watch for traffic or other signs of life. Nothing happening here, folks, you might as well move on. Lake View would love to serve you.
The three insurance companies that manage Iowa’s Medicaid program will receive a 90% increase in funding for this year amounting to about $135 million, according to State Auditor Rob Sand. He is the Democratic candidate for governor who wisely is making Medicaid privatization a principal issue in his campaign. The “reform” imposed by Gov. Terry Branstad and maintained by Gov. Kim Reynolds costs more and provides less service than when Medicaid was administered by the Department of Human Services.
As a result of this and Trump’s Big Bad Bill, Iowa legislators are increasing taxes on health insurance. They just handed Sand another arrow for his quiver.
The Medicaid changes resulted in several nursing home closures. Health clinics and rural hospitals have shut down. It will get worse as long as Iowa is tied into this private managed-care system.
“We can’t keep kicking this can down the road,” said Sand. “I alerted this administration a year ago to the deficits not only in the Medicaid program, but also in the state budget — billion-dollar deficits for multiple years. Iowans can’t afford to cover the cost of the bad decisions made by government insiders. They deserve full transparency and accountability as to why they’re paying more for less.”
Long before that, we urged an audit of the program to learn where the money was going. It’s good that Sand has seized on the ballooning costs and his shining a light on the waste. Meantime, brace yourself for higher health care premiums in Iowa because of the changes made by supposedly conservative politicians.
Iowa farmers are getting the double whammy from President Trump: He renewed a trade war with China that destroyed soy exports, and he drove up fuel and fertilizer prices by starting a war of his choice with Iran. Farmers already were complaining about low prices and high input costs ahead of Israel and the US bombing Tehran.
Trump allowed $12 billion in disaster aid to agriculture to make up for his trade war. Farmers are asking for more help because of sharply higher fuel and fertilizer costs as the result of closing the Strait of Hormuz. Trump says things should clear in a couple weeks, his typical timeline. He should instead think in millennia. This is not ending soon. Plus, Trump’s tariffs have squelched ag exports.
Most farmers had their fertilizer and diesel needs booked before the war. They were expensive enough. But urea and anhydrous were up by a third just last week. Eventually somebody has to pay for that. If not this year, then next. For the consumer, higher energy and fertilizer costs lead to food inflation.
Trump says he loves farmers. He has a strange way of showing it. Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States. This is a war for Israel and Saudi Arabia, and we get stuck paying the price. Even if we do pull out in a matter of weeks and not years, we will bear the cost for a long time. Those windmills Trump loves to hate sure look good about now.
We work in a metal building, so we can appreciate why the city puts metal roofs on park buildings. Cedar shingles look better but they are a fright to maintain. It’s okay that the Sunset Park Bandshell got a metal roof alongside the restrooms. It’s grudgingly okay to put a metal roof on the Chautauqua Park Shelter House — chintzy but it does protect the building in perpetuity.
We draw the line at lining the ceiling of the historic shelter house with white sheet metal. It looks awful, even worse with fluorescent lights ablaze. The ceiling was wood-slat. It felt like a shelter house. People defaced the wood with nails and the like, so they just put in metal. It will be tougher screwing or nailing things into it, even if it feels like a machine shed. Cheap and good enough for a town this size is the philosophy. Looks like we just can’t have nice things.
Senate Education Committee Chairman Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, announced last week that there are not enough votes to have community colleges offer bachelor’s degrees. That’s a relief. The bill by House Higher Education Committee Chairman Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, would have been a serious threat to struggling private colleges across the state. Plus, it would have cost at least $20 million to solve a problem that doesn’t exist: access to a four-year degree. If you have decent grades and ambition, Buena Vista University is ready to show you the way as an alternative to a state university. BVU has been working with community college transfers forever.
Collins continues his crusade against higher education with a demand that Drake University reveal more about its agreements with universities in China. He points to income that the Des Moines university received from China for student exchanges. If you wanted to spy, Drake is hardly the place. Not much to learn in the actuary program. Iowa State University long has hosted Chinese students and jointly operated seed labs in China. Terry Branstad nurtured that relationship for decades. As someone holding degrees from Iowa State and Drake, Rep. Collins should be aware of this. China might get the message that we don’t want to sell them soybeans or pork, or that we do not welcome their brains in our genetics program in Ames.
Drake, Buena Vista, Wartburg and Dordt draw foreign students and their money. Iowa State, too. Higher education has been an economic engine in Iowa. We need pharmacists from Drake and teachers from BVU in small towns that vote Republican. We need agronomists from Iowa State, and doctors and lawyers from Iowa City. This is supposed to be the Education State. It is time to call off the dogs.
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