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As the Iowa Library Association President, I seek your support to Iowa communities affected by House File 718 as levy dollars funding services in approximately 17.7% of Iowa’s libraries are now in jeopardy.
While at first glance it might seem that the new tax exemption law lowers costs to Iowans, more accurately it allows legal reappropriation from the intended purpose to a less clear designation. Rather than mitigate increases, the law continues to collect tax initiated through personal community choice for stronger libraries and allows cities to shift funds from libraries to other projects which would typically be funded by increased taxes. The result eliminates the option for communities to create future library levies and will significantly diminish the impact and capacity of Iowa libraries.
In 97 communities across the state, Iowans successfully petitioned for a library levy to be placed on their ballot. Iowans in those communities then voted by the required margin to obtain levies for library services. Subsequently, these communities gained stronger access to information, literacy, learning, entertainment, technical help, and community-building through these levies. The list of benefits to all taxpayers and their families is significant and long-lasting.
Levies are the perfect form of representation through taxation. The voters of the communities proudly served by these libraries not only agreed through a petition to add the levy to the ballot, but also voted to tax themselves in order to fund their priorities.
Levy dollars account for significant portions of the operating budget in public libraries around the state. These funds enable circulation of materials, provide robust reference services, and support job seeking, entrepreneurial and economic development, life-long learning, and social welfare.
Without these dedicated funds, the library may not be able to maintain the level of collections, staffing or operational hours their communities have come to rely on. If these funds are reallocated, onerous choices will emerge as libraries must decide what crucial services must be cut.
Libraries provide open access privileges to over 500 other service communities around the state, lend each other resources, and provide comprehensive support throughout Iowa. What impacts one library truly impacts us all. Please reach out to your library director today to learn how your voice can help in these crucial conversations during Library Board and City Council meetings.
Sam Helmick, Iowa Library Association President
After reading your recent article about Varina’s wastewater discharge problems I have to admit, even having a doctorate in chemistry and researching aqueous systems, that I needed to Google this term and thus learned more about the history of the much more widely used and often misunderstood term “pH.” Most people have some understanding of the terms “acidity” and “basicity.” Presumably the Varina discharge was either too acidic, or too basic, and since ammonia levels were excessive, I presume the latter. My plea is for the use of chemical terms accessible to the general public and not mysterious even to chemists.
Jon Hutchins, Storm Lake
The recent editorial “God is not governor” certainly caught my attention. I live, like most of us, in the tension between “faith” and “politics” everyday. You have succinctly expressed realities, exasperation, appropriate anger and much truth.
Rev. David Halaas, Sioux City
I sent this letter to President Joe Biden:
In your Oct. 10 speech, you spoke of your first meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir before the Six-Day War. She reassured you, “We (Israelis) have a secret weapon: We have nowhere else to go.” Isn’t the fundamental issue that there are two peoples — Israelis and Palestinians — in the same territory with “nowhere else to go?”
Destroying Hamas is a quixotic goal. Hamas or a like group will rise again, so long as Palestinians’ right to live in their homeland is threatened by the Israeli state. This Israeli system, called apartheid by President Carter, makes that threat concrete.
In seeking an Israel-Saudi Arabia accord, your administration is pursuing a two-pronged strategy: a) continuing to trot out our official support of a two-state solution to convince Americans of our “commitment” to Palestinians, and b) keeping the “Bantustans” quiet at least until an Israel-Saudi Arabia accord occurs. Thus, U.S. Middle East policy has become Kissingeresque, but the Hamas pogrom in Israel quashed the Saudi Arabia accord.
The U.S. and Israel conspire to keep atrocities against Palestinians below the radar: Brazen attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian homes and the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank have not led to effective U.S. pressure on Israel to stop such violations of international law.
What should the U.S. do?
Jan Flora, Ames
Kudos to you for your nice tribute to Dan Smith in the Oct. 6 issue of the Times Pilot. Good guys are recognized too seldom just for being good guys.
I lived at 815 Erie St. — two houses north of Dan. I was a year ahead of you guys — graduated from SLHS in 1967.
We were there when Dan and family moved from Varina. Had many heated whiffle ball games in our backyard.
I still have family and friends in SL and just happened to be back there when your column came out.
Anyway, it was a class act.
Gary G. Swenson, Fairfax Station, Va.
Rural Iowans value public education. We know that regardless of race, religion or Zip Code all Iowa children deserve access to a quality education. We write because the current Iowa education policies of diverting public dollars to private, often faith-based schools, while underfunding public schools, are hurting rural Iowans.
The school is the heartbeat of a rural community, and we have all seen what happens to small communities when the school closes. Over a period of years, the towns become shadows of themselves and may eventually disappear.
Rather than passing legislation to preserve our rural communities, to give them “Freedom to Flourish,” Gov. Reynolds and the majority of Republican legislators are making no attempts to revitalize rural Iowa. They are, in fact, hastening the demise of small, rural towns.
Iowa communities of any size dry up without healthy public schools. Local schools already feel the negative impact of Reynolds’ School Choice law. Public schools are the only schools in 43 of Iowa’s 99 counties. The state tax dollars residents of those counties pay are being shifted to counties in which there are private (usually faith-based) schools.
Instead of helping students in our rural public schools, and sustaining our rural communities, our tax dollars are being sent to more populated areas.
Private schools have no public oversight via elected school boards. Since their records are not subject to open records scrutiny and their governance is not subject to open meetings laws, taxpayers/citizens have no way to verify the education quality or school operations. Private schools, if they don’t use the State of Iowa for accreditation, don’t even need to hire licensed teachers.
An ongoing concern impacting rural Iowa is a shortage of teachers. Private schools are able to hire teachers away from smaller rural schools, since their pay scales may be better than in those smaller public schools. That will make it more difficult for rural schools to hire the teachers needed to obtain state accreditation, moving the school one step closer to consolidation.
A value of Iowa and a free country is access to public education, comparable across geographic and demographic lines.
Gov. Reynolds’ School Choice law hurts rural Iowa. It is a hindrance to small towns flourishing. We believe rural Iowans share these concerns. Contact your legislators and tell them to support public education not just with words, but with finances.
Mary Weaver, On behalf of Progressive Rural Optimists, PRO Iowa 24 — a group of concerned rural Iowans with progressive values from Greene, Guthrie, Boone, Story and Dallas counties
This year’s farm bill should significantly increase federal funding for cultivated-meat research. For those who don’t know, cultivated meat is grown from livestock cells, without slaughter. It has the potential to dramatically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, our pandemic risk and the suffering we inflict on animals.
While the product is currently sold in a few high-end restaurants, further research is needed for cultivated meat to achieve price parity with slaughtered meat, which is crucial for widespread adoption. If you’d like to help pressure legislators to support this research, visit SlaughterFreeAmerica.Substack.com.
Jon Hochschartner, Granby, Conn.
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