Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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Over the years, I've covered a few elections – probably more than I'd like to remember. Back in the day, we didn't get the wall-to-wall commercials slinging mud or the daily update on what the polls say. But one thing hasn't changed – elections are maybe the most observed, double checked and overseen functions of government. Vote counting machines are double- and triple-checked. Each political party employs "poll watchers" to make sure there's no hanky panky and the boards that count and rec...
For more than 30 years, I worked among fellow journalists who were passionate watchdogs reporting on the actions of people in power as a way to hold them accountable. I'm proud to see that important work continue, from the reporting on local government budgets to investigations of corruption in the halls of Congress. Ensuring transparency and accountability of government remains the goal every day - and no one is above scrutiny. Unfortunately, Americans are gobbling up outlandish misinformation...
In October 1988, the Cold War was still simmering. World War II was just a generation ago, fresh in many veterans’ minds and in the hearts of families who lost their parents and grandparents in the conflict. More recently, many Americans had fought in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and many returned home in need of health care and in search of employment. October 1988 was the month President Ronald Reagan signed the Department of Veterans Affairs Act, which transformed the independent Veterans A...
There's a map tacked up on the wall in Kameron Runnels' office – squared lines and small text showing who owns what pieces of the Santee Sioux reservation. Six of the squares, big chunks of land, are labeled the same: "school land." Runnels, the tribe's vice chairman, said he always wondered what exactly that meant. Two of the squares are colored in green – land the tribe pays the state almost $65,500 per year to rent and farm, even though it's within reservation boundaries. When Nebraska was...
As we all know, state legislators have been called back to Lincoln for a special session this summer to tackle the state's high property taxes. As has been written here before, good luck with that. It's easy to gripe about property taxes being too high; much more difficult to lower them without shifting the tax load onto someone else. But we need to talk about something that we also all gripe about – gasoline prices. I'm one of those guys who scans the countryside for the cheapest gas p...
As introduced, Gov. Jim Pillen’s core property tax relief proposal could fall short by $139 million in annual estimated revenue needed. Pillen’s main proposal, introduced through Legislative Bill 1 in the special session, includes placing a sales tax on more than 100 currently tax-exempt goods and services. It would also raise seven “sin” taxes, on candy and soft drinks, vapes, cigarettes, keno gambling, spirits, consumable hemp and games of skill. In total, the new or increased taxes would raise an estimated $1.15 billion in the first full fis...
In 2021, the last special session of the Nebraska Legislature lasted 13 days and cost the state $105,436. Do the math, that's $8,076.92 per day. Then ask yourself, is a winner-take-all election measure, which would bring Nebraska into the same fold as 48 other states, worth the money. For that matter, is a so-called solution to the state's property tax problems worth it? They're bantering the words "special session" around like it's nothing short of expected. Gov. Jim Pillen says he will call a...
It's easy to understand but hard to remember that the one task of the Nebraska Legislature is to pass a balanced budget during the 90-day session and to make adjustments to and pass that budget again in the 60-day session. Mission accomplished again by the 2024 Legislature, which has a little more than a week of session left. The simple task often gets lost in the shadow of high-profile issues, such as this year's struggle to find a solution for skyrocketing property taxes. With all eyes on...
Typically, at the end of the legal notices that run in the paper, I add the phrase, "The public has the right to know." You do. The premise is etched into our statehouse's north wall, "The Salvation of the State is Watchfulness in the Citizen." Now, more than ever, you should educate yourselves on the ins and outs of freedom of information laws. Now, more than ever, there's a need for citizens to become involved. This is Sunshine Week, a time to highlight the necessity of open government. In...
Sunshine Week is March 10 through 16, and this year, there's an even greater need for you to get involved.Sunshine Week annually celebrates freedom of information laws in every state. It also salutes efforts by good government advocates and journalists to use and ensure the effectiveness of those laws to get the information we need as self-governing citizens. The name is a play on the commonsense words spoken more than a century ago by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, that "Sunlight...
Dear fellow citizens of Holt County, For the past months, the Nebraska Association of County Officials has been an integral part of Gov. Pillen’s tax working group, along with many other entities, state senators, Pillen and his key staff, and other stakeholders such as the cities, Farm Bureau and the realtors.. We have had many meetings striving to craft Nebraska tax policy, to cut taxes, to more equitably define policy and to ensure we have the revenue necessary to provide essential services to our citizens. LB 1067, introduced by State S...
Omaha Senator Justin Wayne, chair of the Judiciary Committee, has offered a bill that would put Nebraska's Legislature in charge of the state's prison system, which is currently under the purview of the executive branch. Given the way things have been going with the Department of Correctional Services, especially the selection of a site for a new prison in northeast Lincoln that was changed to an allegedly more acceptable site at the last minute, I like Wayne's proposal. If made law, it would pu...
The structure of county government day in Holt County may have a different look next fall. Suupervisor Doug Frahm said for a number of years, the local veterans service officer has assisted with organizing the day’s program. “Ken (Stenka) doesn’t feel he has the responsibility or the time to do it anymore,” Frahm reported. “And he’s right, it’s not his program, it’s the American Legion’s program. He did volunteer to do it at the time ... before Arnold Hall, the county commander or a po...
Just when you thought the drought was bad, deserts have started popping up in Nebraska. Pick a topic: childcare; food; maternal health care. They have been discussed in the interim by lawmakers and deserve to be included among bills under consideration next session. It's time to start looking at problems affecting Nebraskans and not the national agenda of one political party. For example, the state could help encourage more doctors to dedicate their time and specialty to labor and delivery care...
"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories." You could almost hear the most famous two lines from TV's crime drama "Law and Order" before the case of Bill E. Kid began, Oct. 5, at the Antelope County Courthouse. The mock trial is a yearly tradition during County Government Day. Kid is accused of drinking at a party...
Their low, rumbling bellow first cuts through the silence of the Sandhills. Next comes the crunch of pointed hooves, trudging their way through tall prairie grasses. Then, the oohs of the out-of-towners watching – people up close and personal with the majestic thousand-pound mammals for the first time. This is Golden Prairie Bison, a ranch nestled in the Sandhills where Carl and Vicki Simmons raise a herd of 50 bison. Theirs is one of the dozens of bison ranches in Nebraska, one piece of an o...
KEARNEY – Americans have recognized military veterans in vastly different ways over the past 247 years. They've thrown parades for some and scorned others. But the Pawnee scouts, who protected pioneers, freighters and railroad workers in Nebraska during the mid-19th century's great migration west, were largely forgotten outside the Pawnee Nation in Oklahoma. "Those scouts were the very first in our tribe to serve in the military, so we hold our veterans on a high pedestal, almost like c...
A 23-year-old Oakdale man has been charged with one Class 4 felony count of operating a motor vehicle to avoid arrest, alleged July 4 in downtown Neligh, during the city’s 150th birthday/Old Mill Days celebration. Rider C. Short faced the Honorable Donna Taylor in the Antelope County courtroom in Neligh on July 5 for a bond hearing. Taylor set bond at $20,000, 10% cash, which Short posted the same day. Antelope County public defender Pat Carney was appointed to represent him. Further arraignment is set July 19. Short was allegedly observed b...
Agriculture, broadband connectivity and tax savings were key topics addressed during Gov. Jim Pillen's town hall meeting, June 28, in O'Neill. Pillen opened by telling the crowd of approximately 80 that his team strives to work for "all Nebraskans. "I can't stand politics. I can't stand politicians," the governor said. "The privilege I had in the first six months, it is unbelievable how many incredible public servants we have serving the state of Nebraska." One of Pillen's goals has been to...
The 108th Legislature First Session was a hot mess. The fact that three senators could derail the work of 46 others in the nation's only one-house, allegedly nonpartisan Legislature, speaks volumes. What went wrong? Most everything that could. There were 17 new senators (two of them who served terms before being reelected in November). A new clerk of the legislature stepped up after two years as an assistant. A new governor and a new lieutenant governor who is the presiding officer of the...
The 108th Legislature, First Session, has adjourned sine die. This past year, lawmakers passed some important bills and failed to agree on other critical issues. Excluding A bills, of the 820 bills and 274 resolutions introduced this year, only 33 bills and one resolution actually received a final vote. However, the bills passed included many expansive Christmas tree packages, meaning the Legislature actually passed 291 bills in total, including A bills. This figure is comparable to the last...
Amid nasty debate about social issues, filibustering and theater playing out in the legislative chamber, lawmakers did manage to meet their constitutional obligation and pass a balanced budget on day 80 of the 90-day session. The two-year budget calls for about $5.3 billion a year in spending, with an average increase of 2.2%. It sets aside a generous amount for cuts in state income taxes and increases in tax credits for property taxes, as well as allocating the final funds for a $366 million...
With less than two weeks left in the session, the 108th Legislature is dragging an overburdened $12.975 billion budget to the finish line. Passing the budget is the only thing lawmakers are constitutionally required to accomplish. As introduced by the Appropriations Committee, the budget proposal would result in a projected ending balance of almost $715 million above the 3% required minimum reserve. This amount would be available to fund proposals pending before the Legislature this session....
Three proposals to cover the solution looking for a problem -- voter ID -- have proven to be about as confusing as the proponent’s explanation as to why the idea was necessary. After a lot of listening and a bunch of head scratching, I’m still not convinced. The only thing I know for sure, in Sen. Steve Erdman’s world there would be no mail-in ballots. Tell that to the 11 Nebraska counties that hold mail-only elections right now. Better yet, convince my 85-year -old neighbors that it’s a good idea. I’ve been voting by mail since Covid and...
NORFOLK – One of the last bus drivers in Norfolk begins his day by taking Nancy Stehlik to work. Wrapped in a purple coat and earmuffs, Stehlik inches her walker onto the small bus’s wheelchair lift. Driver Neil Schlecht pushes a button and the lift whirs down, placing Stehlik outside of work. For the rest of the day, he takes seven people to clinics, church and the grocery store. He jokes with riders just as he’s long done as a driver for North Fork Area Transit, the bus service which, until recently, used 35 buses and vans to give as many...
