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Losing papers and people

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Last week we regretfully announced that at the end of this month, the Aurelia Star will cease publication.

We never really made money on the Star since taking it over about five years ago, but we continued to publish it as a service to the Aurelia community. After the Cherokee County Board of Supervisors decided to quit printing public notices in the Star, it was no longer possible financially to continue printing the paper.

Like so many other small Iowa communities, losing your hometown newspaper is a blow. As towns lose their population, it’s followed by their stores, their banks, their schools and their newspapers. Joining the Star in local newspaper obituaries are the Aurelia Sentinel, Alta Advertiser, Sioux Rapids Bulletin Press, Newell Mirror, Fonda Times, Early News, Albert City Appeal, Marathon Republic.

The list of businesses that have closed in Buena Vista County’s small towns over the past few years because of dwindling population would be shocking. Don’t take my word for it. Drive down the main street of any rural town in Iowa and look at all the empty buildings.

Taken individually, the loss of a town’s newspaper isn’t cataclysmic, but over time it compounds the loss of a community’s identity. There’s no other business, no entity that’s fighting for the community as its voice. A town’s newspaper is a basic form of economic development. Does Mark Zuckerberg, who runs Facebook, care about Aurelia? He probably couldn’t even find Iowa on a map.

Fortunately, the Storm Lake Times Pilot is here to stay and will continue to cover the news in Aurelia and every other community around us. Our roots date back to 1870, three years before Storm Lake was founded. We are the oldest continuously operating business in Buena Vista County.

MEANWHILE, our state leaders have failed to stop the hemorrhage of people and businesses in rural Iowa. Iowa’s politicians will do anything to save our pigs and poultry, but not our people. One hundred years ago, Iowa had 11 congressional districts. Now we’re down to four, and if trends continue that will probably decrease to three after the next census in 2030.

Our governor thinks eliminating the state income tax will solve our problems. Well, South Dakota has no income tax, and our neighbor to the west is no better off than we are. Taxes are not the reason young people leave Iowa. They flock to higher taxes in Chicago, Twin Cities, Denver, California and East Coast. The draw is opportunity: there are more things to do and more money to be made outside of Northwest Iowa.

Alta is trying to establish a new public library. It was forced to quit sharing the town’s library with the school’s because our legislature was afraid some student might read “To Kill A Mockingbird” and get crazy ideas about diversity and inclusion. How can you attract residents with that attitude?

There is one group of people who want to live in Iowa: immigrants. When we have the chance to repopulate rural Iowa with immigrants eager to grow our communities, our new President pledges to throw them out of the country and our Governor offers to use the National Guard and police to help in the roundup.

The only towns in western Iowa that are growing are the ones that welcome immigrants, like Storm Lake and Denison.

Rather than run our new neighbors out, why not offer them a welcoming hand if they agree to move where we need people — a new homestead program, if you will. It will do two things: take the pressure off southwest border towns and big northern cities, and help rejuvenate the lightly populated rural Midwest.

Tell immigrants that if they settle in towns like Aurelia, Newell, Fonda, Sioux Rapids, Rembrandt, Early and Schaller, we’ll train them for new job opportunities that are going unfilled but are much needed, like plumbers, electricians, nursing aides, welders, carpenters, meatpackers, farmhands, restaurant servers and hotel housekeepers. They can get much of this training affordably through Iowa Central Community College right here in Storm Lake and live in the towns around us. They won’t take a single job from any Anglo and will help save our small towns with the taxes they pay and the children they raise. Make it easy for them to get documentation. If they play by the rules they can become citizens in due time.

That’s how immigrants did it before us. My great-grandparents landed in Boston from County Cavan, Ireland, in 1847, then made their way to Iowa, settled in a sod hut between Emmetsburg and Cylinder and farmed along what is now highway 18. They did their part to populate Palo Alta County: they raised nine kids there.

The Danes did the same thing around Newell and built that community up. Germans grew the Alta area. Look at the Swedes in Albert City.

We ought to try it again.

Fillers, John Cullen

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