A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper
Often, I wonder what it will take for Iowans to wake up and pay attention to the State Auditor’s office. I pray it won’t take a massive scandal like what happened in Minnesota.
What is the point of paying taxes if we are not going to properly oversee how those dollars are spent?
Right now, $51 million levied through township property taxes goes with virtually no oversight. On top of that, more than $100 million a year in small-town property taxes can go without an audit for up to eight years. I find it ironic that taxpayers are required to keep careful records and report our income to the government every year so they know exactly how much we owe them, yet local governments are not held to the same standard of accountability to us.
That has to change, and it is exactly why I am running for State Auditor.
I have a real plan to fix Iowa Code and increase efficiency so we can properly oversee our hard-earned tax dollars. I also believe taxpayers deserve to see a detailed account of how their money is spent. That is why I am proposing a statewide accounting software system for local governments, with transactions made available online for the public to review. It shouldn’t take a PhD to understand how our property taxes are being spent, and I believe the public should be able to see every transaction.
Transparency is how we truly root out fraud, waste, and abuse. It will not only curb the temptation to misuse taxpayer dollars, but it will also empower voters to identify bad actors in their local elections.
I urge Iowans to wake up, pay attention to this race, and take it seriously. It is critical that we elect someone who cares about doing the job, not someone simply seeking a political title.
Abigail Maas, Candidate for State Auditor, Republican, South Amana
This seventh article uses the same format as the others. My hope is that by sharing these stories, we can all get to know our community a little better. I feel thankful to have met so many amazing people in the Storm Lake area who are working hard to build better lives. They are truly remarkable, and I believe their stories deserve to be shared. So, here is the seventh:
We often think we know our neighbors. But how well do we really understand the journeys that brought them here? Some stories are full of joy. Others are marked by loss and challenge. All of them can help us see each other with more understanding. It’s easy to believe the struggles we see on TV, or hear about in the news, only happen far away. But many of those same struggles affect people right here in our community.
The details in this story are changed to protect privacy, but the person is real. They might be standing next to you at the store or waiting in line for coffee. My purpose in sharing these stories is to help us connect with, and feel connected to, the people around us. After all, I believe that when we know each other’s stories, it is harder to hate or harm one another.
In every community, there are stories of strength, resilience and second chances. One such story belongs to our neighbor.
The seventh community member’s story began in upstate New York, where she was born and raised by her father and stepmother. Her early childhood was marked by hardship, as her mother struggled with drug addiction. In one deeply troubling incident, while under the influence of drugs, her mother threw her into a dumpster — an event witnessed by neighbors. After that, her father was granted full custody. From that point on, her stepmother became the steady and caring presence she now calls “Mom.”
Like many young people, her teenage years were not without pushback. In a moment of declaring her independence, she moved to Ohio to live with her stepsister. When that situation did not turn out as hoped, because her sister took all of her money, she returned to upstate New York to live again with her parents. There she experienced stability and security.
This person was always a strong student and performed near the top of her class throughout school. However, a serious health incident caused her to leave school for quite a while during her senior year. Despite her parents’ efforts to support her with a tutor so she wouldn’t get behind, some of the policies a few of the teachers implemented created barriers that would fail her. Rather than accept that decision, she chose to leave high school before graduating.
Right away she got a job to earn money for herself and her family. Over time this turned into her working several jobs, eventually taking on a leadership role as a manager. Still, she carried a question with her: could she finish what she started when it came to her schooling? Had she really learned enough to get her high school diploma?
The answer came when she made the decision to return to school. Though it had been quite a while since she had been in a classroom, she wanted to give it a chance. She needed to prove to herself that she could do it. Step by step, she regained her confidence as she moved through the various subjects. Putting to practice the study skills she still had and asking her teacher for help when needed. With determination and hard work, she earned her high school equivalency diploma in just one month.
Today, she is enrolled in the Iowa Central Community College nursing program, working toward becoming a registered nurse which she hopes to achieve within the next three years. Her story is a reminder that no matter where we begin or what obstacles we face, it is never too late to move forward, to grow, and to achieve our goals.
She is our neighbor.
Sarah E. Schoper, Storm Lake
Over my career, I’ve designed sewage treatment facilities for thousands of people. I’ve always believed that relieving our individual bodies of metabolic wastes to be a basic human right, a daily routine euphemistically called “the daily constitutional.”
Too many of today’s legislators and politicians believe otherwise because they seem eager to repeal the laws of science, physics and anatomy. The temptation to decree how, when and where citizens can use their God-given gifts of daily hygiene seems to be the trendy, annual political praxis. This fixation also supplants solving serious problems.
In the early 60s, I attended a one-room country schoolhouse with a student body that dwindled to five pupils by the time I reached eighth grade. Our school had a bell and cupola, with a hand pump connected to a cistern located under the coat room. We used two separate outdoor privies, one for boys and one for girls.
My eighth-grade teacher, Edith, possessed 20-plus years of experience and had little time for nonsense.
The community knew her family well. My dad’s family and my teacher’s family were friends. My dad remembered when she was born, her growing up in our rural community and that she enjoyed hunting rabbits.
Her clothing consisted of trousers, shirt and tie, and she wore her hair short, combed straight back. She used the girl’s privy. When questions arose concerning the discontinuity in her wardrobe and bathroom habits, older classmates and parents frankly answered that she was a hermaphrodite.
She accepted who she was, as did her profession and her community. That the good Lord apparently provided her with plumbing that was different than everyone else’s was nobody else’s business.
When she was my teacher, she lived with a single mom with two young children. From listening to her conversations about daily family life, I realized her family benefited from her parenting and nurturing skills that she provided.
Our community didn’t harbor any negative reactions to her living her life as she did. She set a good example for her students by contributing her gifts to the community in spite of the adversities she was dealt.
At the time, I did not fully appreciate the importance of the lessons taught throughout my entire eighth grade, that knowledge and understanding are essential to resolve misconceptions and prevent conflict. It also reaffirmed my appreciation of education and the sanctity of people’s rights.
Why do too many politicians squander time on petty attempts to interject legislative control over normal bodily functions? We need to get truly serious about sexual predation, abuse and human trafficking. But why do so many of our legislators and politicians choose complicity by ignoring and/or covering up Epstein-type crimes and governmental gridlock?
We need to practice more “Baby Philosophy.” If something stinks, change it.
Roger R. Patocka, P.E., Estherville
I am imagining a Senate confirmation hearing where the candidate is a stuffed male ragdoll, supported by the President.
After the hearing, Republicans are interviewed in the hallways. They say, “I didn’t hear anything today that would disqualify him. He has my confidence.”
Suzanne Castello, Grinnell
For some time, I’ve wondered, due to the very fast rise in homeless encampments in California, were the homeless due to alcohol and drug abuse, or did the homeless become hopeless and addicted due to being homeless? The book “There is no place for us: Working and homeless in America” by Brian Goldstone partly answers.
This non-fiction book is about five Atlanta, Ga., Black families, better said, “units” as they are certainly not traditional families. All are broke, working, often headed by a woman, but none earn enough to weather any financial emergency, or the gentrification of their neighborhood, forced to move, which put them beyond ability to stay in their neighborhood, child care or schools.
Financially, they have virtually no control over their lives. Low income and credit scores often limit them to moving into extended stay motels, since it’s a daily rental and no credit score required, which are more expensive, when they are forced to move, down the ladder of poverty.
Social welfare programs also hinder them with requirements, delays and inspections, even a lack of common sense, instead of assisting them. The only thing worse than their poverty is their choice of male partners. However, they are the working poor, unable to get ahead, forced into worse financial risks because there were no options.
The inability to save was a major setback to any independence. They were the hidden homeless, extended stays were a catch-22, no credit for renting at motels, no improved credit scores, no savings. Homelessness created a lucrative business for Blackstone, a major private equity firm.
Once unions built the middle class; right-to-work laws, with minimum wage is the flip side.
I never realized as a child, but learned and recalled later, our limited financial but secure situation. Mom managed to buy the house we were living in, sharing with two bachelors, roomers, who paid mom their rent months in advance, when the house went into an estate sale, as did mom’s employer, who also advanced her salary. So, mom at age 22 bought our home, 5456 Locksley Ave., Oakland, Calif. Three years later, mom remarried, husband John, turned the rear of the house into a one bedroom rental, and the attic into one huge bedroom for me and eventually sister Sue and brother Willie. Divorced after five years, living on a tight budget, I knew the tenant’s rent covered the mortgage. Mom just didn’t have extra cash from alimony and child support income. We were healthy and fed, scrambled eggs were on the dinner menu! When mom went to work, the local grammar school, likely due to WW II working class neighborhood, had a childcare program, leave child from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., which she did with Sue and Willie. I was the Lone Ranger! I was free to come and go, my school was in a middle to upper middle-class neighborhood school, professional parents mostly. I understood “class”... yet, never felt out-of-place. We just didn’t spend much money. We just didn’t have Atlanta problems. Or private equity gaming the poverty-gentrification housing real estate squeeze.
Dick Davis, Danville, Calif.
In a recent publication of Brownfield Ag News, Iowa gubernatorial candidate Randy Feenstra warns that catastrophe awaits Iowa farmers if fuel and fertilizer costs continue to soar.
Where was that concern when Feenstra voted against limiting U.S. bombardment of Iran, whose closing of the Strait of Hormuz has severed the flow of nitrogen-based fertilizers? Or against overturning Trump’s Canadian tariffs, which raise the cost of aluminum and steel for producing farm machinery?
Where is his concern in timely producing a farm bill so that farmers can access vital loans, safety net payments, and disaster relief?
Meanwhile, farmers, who pay his Congressional salary, stagger under the weight of a four-year downturn and a 220% increase in Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings.
At this point a 1990s Shania Twain hit comes to mind: “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?”
Feenstra’s boots are in China where he enjoys the largesse of two Chinese ag giants, Syngenta and Smithfield, who give generously to his campaign (all while Feenstra publicly rails against China buying up Iowa farmland).
Feenstra’s boots enjoy a cozy relationship with the White House, since he never votes against Trump priorities.
It’s time for Iowans to realize that we’ve been played. How can Feenstra govern us if he is too timid to promote our interests in Congress? And what if he manages to convince Trump to bail out farmers before the November election? No deal! Iowa’s farmers want leaders who let them feed the world, not offer handouts as a consolation prize.
Karen Heidman, Sioux City
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here