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Mayor Mike Porsch is wise to remind City Manager Kari Navratil that Storm Lake citizens need a complete understanding of our water demand and capacity as we approach some $100 million in system improvements. Navratil declined to answer at a water task force meeting about Tyson’s projected demand. Storm Lake needs to know to make informed decisions.
Task force member Mike Wilson, a former city development director, posed the question in the context of engineers reporting that Storm Lake’s underground water supply is tapped out. The city may expand west toward greater reserves in the aquifer, at formidable expense. Were it not for meatpacking we would not face the challenge. Thousands of jobs depend on how we approach the answer.
Navratil indicated that Tyson will expand consumption as it can using conservation methods. That’s about all we know. How much Tyson will need may guide how far Storm Lake has to go in search of prolific wells.
How the cost will be appropriated among ratepayers is not so much an open question so long as secrets are held close to the vest. There is no more fundamental public interest than the availability of affordable potable water. If the public cannot know then we have lost our civic franchise.
Water is fast becoming a currency with rapidly rising demand, a persistent drought in vital food production regions, and receding underground supplies. Storm Lake must guard its reserves. Engineers believe there is enough water to meet industrial demand but we will have to go a distance to get at it. Residential ratepayers will likely bear an inordinate burden.
Navratil’s reluctance to be candid insists on a trust that has not been earned. The city is cutting services and increasing taxes because it hasn’t been able to keep track of the money it should have. Tyson is necessarily interested in low cost and plentiful supply, and will always hold the upper hand behind closed doors.
We look forward to a full and frank discussion of the city’s most important resource: water.
You can help shape the discussion of how the Storm Lake Marina should be used. The Buena Vista County Marina Subcommittee urges the public to complete its poll of best uses for the facility on the lake’s west side. Participating in the poll indicates public interest to county officials and to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which is supposed to deed the property to the county.
Go to: bit.ly/marinapoll. (UPDATE: This poll has closed).
It’s no secret what we think: The marina should serve recreational, entertainment and education purposes. That is what it was built for. We need good docks, good burgers, beer and bait, and naturalist presentations on prairie potholes. All of it. If done right, it will make money for the county. If done wrong, everyone will forget about it and the place will fall back into neglect.
Gov. Kim Reynolds tried to gird her troops for property tax reform as she prepares to make her final charge up the hill. She met with state legislators and local business leaders in Dallas County to start talks on how to rein in property taxes. The meeting was not open to the public, of course, because you can’t handle the truth.
Reynolds was unable to push property tax reform during the last legislative session. Terry Branstad tried and there might be tombstones for the blue-ribbon task forces. Tom Vilsack might have tried; we can’t remember. It is tough work. Much tougher than taking a machete to the income tax or raising the sales tax.
Property taxes fund schools and fire trucks. That’s what it boils down to.
One of the legislators at the secret meeting was Rep. Carter Nordman, the Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. He said this afterwards: “Ultimately, the localities are the ones who are spending the money. And so they need to be at the table, willing to look at efficiencies and see how they can cut costs within their jurisdictions.”
That sounds like it might hurt. Reynolds does not intend to run again. She wants to lead the charge and retreat. It would be funny if we weren’t talking about schools and fire trucks.
It was one of those perfect October Saturday mornings along the lakeshore that defines life in The City Beautiful: cool, colorful, clear and quiet except for the lady speaking to two gray-haired gentlemen in Spanish at Sunset Park. How peaceful, we thought.
Into our paces we started to think about fear. Families here are on the lookout. Our favorite restaurant does not have the same dine-in count that it used to. School enrollment is down a bit for the first time in four years — is some of that out of fear? a Facebook user wondered, and so did we. It probably does play a factor. Schools are the easiest places to find and sweep up families.
That this is part of our considerations illustrates our split-screen reality: quiet, in a prey sort of way, if you look different; or bystander to the hunt amid fallen apples and orange leaves. Quiet seems safe.
City council candidates talked about the anxiety at a forum. They have no control over what would happen. On a Saturday morning you would like for the thought to perish, but it will not. That is the daily reality for many of our neighbors, with papers or not.
Democratic senate candidate Josh Turek of Council Bluffs stopped by our office Friday afternoon to talk up his race to the nomination. After our conversation, he declared that it was all off-the-record. It became clear that Turek is not quite ready for prime-time and needs a good strong dose of candor.
Hubris does not wear well on a minority member of the Iowa House hoping to beat MAGA star Ashley Hinson in the November general election. Turek is not being square with us or you when he believes he cannot trust you with what he actually thinks. It betrays no confidence to say that his remarks were almost completely not newsworthy.
Hinson may rip him to shreds if Turek thinks he is clever enough to play games. Our interest in Nathan Sage of Winterset and Zach Wahls of Iowa City is stronger. We had hoped someone from Western Iowa would emerge as a candidate to settle on, but unfortunately Rep. JD Scholten of Sioux City dropped out and endorsed Turek, who would do well to take Scholten’s counsel.
Democrats can’t win on a wink. They need a candidate who will lay out the case. Turek was just stopping by Storm Lake on his way to someplace else. We are but a waypoint charted out by distant money and consultants. For a Democrat to win statewide in Iowa, they need to perform well in Buena Vista County and hold down their losses in Cherokee and Sac counties. Turek should know that by now and not take us for granted. He speaks Spanish — he should use it by telling the truth to Latinos in Storm Lake and not just wave at them on his way to somewhere else.
That’s how Democrats lose.
Sage has campaigned in Storm Lake. It was a small turnout but nothing was off the record. Wahls will have a long haul up here, being from Iowa City. He needs to spend more time getting to know Northwest Iowa. Turek is obviously a determined politician who will work like crazy. So is Ashley Hinson. She has not been square with Iowans.
We want somebody who will be straight with us. We are not hicks who just fell off the turnip truck. We have had our fill of that prejudice. Voters think Democrats look down on them. Turek does not help himself by avoiding frank discussions.
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