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It’s good that county officials heard the public and decided to use the Storm Lake Marina as a marina and not for conservation department offices. An overwhelming number of people surveyed by a marina task force said they would prefer it to be a place offering amenities: food, drink and boating services. That is what it was built for.
Now comes the equally tough part: Getting the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to agree, and finding a vendor who can make a go of it. IDNR does not cotton to the idea of a party getting started, and it has not transferred control of the west lakeside property to the county yet. If you don’t keep a boot on things, before you know it people are having fun and making money. Who wants that? By allowing the property to deteriorate, the Reynolds Administration was working against the interests of Storm Lake.
Tom Fitzpatrick proposed operating the marina a couple years ago. He wrote a letter to public officials urging them to develop a public-private enterprise there. A properly capitalized plan could succeed with a dedicated plan for maintenance. Details like these can be difficult and drag out the process. Fitzpatrick says he can’t conceive of a business plan unless he knows who controls the property. That has not been set.
It is late in the season. The county and state move slowly. It will be almost impossible to come up with a viable proposition for this year. There is now hope that something can be built for the future to serve the recreational needs of Storm Lake. The conservation offices and warehousing can be accommodated at Peterson.
Local and state officials must impress upon IDNR and the governor that this marina is going to waste and it should be put to good use. We have been dawdling about this for years.
It takes a pretty arrogant attitude to incite the Iowa Public Information Board to action, but the City of Storm Lake’s contempt for the public made enough of an impression. The state board entered into an informal agreement with the city over its attempt to charge The Iowa Standard $375 to provide an email chain regarding a presentation at the public library featuring Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr., a self-described “big gay hillbilly.”
Iowa Standard Publisher Jacob Hall of Sioux Center requested the email correspondence surrounding Taylor’s planned presentation about censorship. The city council refused his request to waive the fee.
These high fees are designed to suppress requests for public information. The city should be embarrassed that it was cited by a state board for not respecting the public’s unfettered access to information. City Manager Kari Navratil acknowledged no error but said the city settled to avoid further costs. That is not the sort of attitude that leads to respect for the public or high hopes that City Hall will take an enlightened view of following the law.
The public owns those records, not the city manager. City staff exists to serve the public. It doesn’t cost $375 to dredge up an email chain, unless public employees are making that much money or they are that deft at hiding emails about big gay hillbillies. The city does it out of contempt for the public interest and the taxpayers themselves. The city council must think this is normal. It is not. It is an abuse of the public records law. That the city could not be less contrite says a lot.
A property tax reform bill bounced to the House from the Senate this week as legislators hope to wrap things up in Des Moines. Legislators have to do something about rapidly rising property taxes with midterm elections approaching in November. They came up with a mishmash that is founded on a 2% cap on property tax revenues for a particular jurisdiction. At this writing, schools were exempt and still subject to the Byzantine school aid formula that an accounting professor from the University of Northern Iowa could barely figure it out.
The Senate bill that passed to the House also includes an exemption for senior citizens.
It is not clear at this point how hard that 2% revenue cap will be. It will cover the general fund but not the insurance fund, for example. We have witnessed many attempts over the years to rein in property taxes using soft freezes. None of them worked for a few reasons: The state shifted the burden away from income taxes to other sources of revenue, like the sales or property taxes; the state controls school budgets and school boards do not, which makes property tax increases more likely because local officials must face local taxpayers; legislators cut a tax break for apartment developers and shifted costs to single-family residences; and we elect and appoint local officials who blow your money without much thought (look at the pitiful way that the city is suing the county).
Property taxes will go down if the legislature rebalanced its income tax reductions. That will not happen, so property taxes will not be contained without laying off some teachers and cops. At the same time, the state is spending about $1 billion more per year than it takes in. Most of that is for local school districts, which will be forced to increase property taxes when our state reserves are exhausted. Agland pays most of the property taxes around here. Farm Bureau and the Iowa Taxpayers Association got what they voted for: lower income taxes, higher property taxes.
This is not conservative fiscal management, it’s about getting past the midterm elections by trying to make voters think you are keeping down the cost of government. Local and state officials will tell you they are tough on profligate spending. If so, where does all the money go? Not to streets, from what we can tell. It wasn’t so long ago that Fonda had a school.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week that the inflation rate for March was 3.3%, driven higher by the Iran War’s impact on fuel and fertilizer. A reasonable immediate reaction was to be skeptical of the number. Can you trust what the government reports anymore? It is safe to assume that the inflation rate is higher than reported.
President Trump is an adjudicated liar. He can barely breathe without lying. When inflation persisted Trump denied it. When his war made it worse, Trump acknowledged inflation but said it was necessary in order to constrain Iran.
Trump and Elon Musk set out to sweep up and control data collected by the octopus of government. Figures lie and liars figure when they have all the figures. The folks on Wall Street have to believe something, so they go along with what they call consensus.
We are not alone in our skepticism. A couple economic researchers from MIT and Harvard advised business elite in a recent MIT bulletin to be wary of government data for three reasons: declining survey response rates, slashed budgets and political interference. Private sources may be preferable if you can afford them and trust them. We need objective government data. We paid for it.
Anyone who buys food or fuel knows that their inflation rate is higher than what the government reports. It will head higher yet as the United States attempts to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. How much higher? Wait for the adjusted numbers to come out before the midterm elections. The Iranians say we will look back on $5 per gallon gasoline with nostalgia. What was the inflation rate again?
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