Guest Post
Latest from Guest Post
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Opinion: Johnson Co. supervisor: We’re still committed to affordable housing
This column, by Johnson County Supervisor Jon Green, is in response to a previous column by leaders from Escucha Mi Voz. On March 3, the Johnson County Board of Supervisors decided to shift funding in support of affordable housing from our American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation to county general funds. We did so to…
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Opinion: Johnson County wrong to halt affordable housing project
The following is an open letter from Escucha Mi Voz leaders to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors. Read a Johnson County supervisor’s response here. Escucha Mi Voz Iowa members urge you to immediately restore and restart the $1.5 million ARPA-funded affordable housing project you halted on April 3 without public notice or input. You…
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Kalbach: Keeping an eye on McKenzie Snow
Gov. Kim Reynolds continued her war on public schools earlier this month when she narrowly won Iowa Senate confirmation of McKenzie Snow to lead the Iowa Department of Education (DOE). Snow is the wrong choice for the 500,000+ kids who attend our public schools, and I fully expect her to carry out Reynolds’ plan for…
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Ung: Taylor sentencing won’t dissuade bad actors from election interference
“A very large downward variance from the recommended sentence.” Those words—a characterization by Kim Taylor’s defense attorney to local media—have been on my mind. So too has the phrase “general deterrence” both from the federal prosecutors and U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Strand, following jury conviction on 52 counts of voter fraud. “A very large downward…
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2 years after historic union vote, Grinnell students sign 1st-in-nation contract
By Zach Spindler-Krage, News Editor, The Scarlet and Black Members of the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW) officially ratified, in a 162-1 vote, the first contract in US history to cover all undergraduate student workers. On Friday, Grinnell College signed the contract, which takes effect immediately. The historic contract raises the base wage for…
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Opinion: I was an Iowa legislator. Where’s the substance to today’s bills?
In today’s hyper-partisan, emotion-fueled political environment, where policy proposals are seemingly presented and defended with facile slogans and tribal appeals, how can any citizen differentiate between the truly good and beneficial ones and those that either serve only a few or harm or denigrate others? I would like to advance a modest proposal based upon…
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Iowa House lawmakers send bill increasing teacher pay to Senate
The Iowa House passed a measure increasing teacher and school staff pay Thursday as the fate of top education policies lawmakers are pursuing this session remain uncertain. House File 2611 passed 92-1 Thursday, with only Rep. Mark Cisneros, R-Muscatine, voting against the measure. The bill would raise teachers’ starting salary to $47,500 in year one…
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Baccam: Iowa’s Summer EBT Decision Hurts Local Economy
As a rural Iowa native, a combat veteran, former advisor at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and a candidate for Congress, I understand the challenges families are facing today. Gas and groceries are too high, wages are too low, and party politics seems to get in the way of any real solutions. Right before…
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Moore: Iowa’s raccoon bounty program is a cruel proposal
The Iowa Legislature’s proposed raccoon bounty, which would subsidize raccoon trapping, is not a novel idea. But no matter how you spin it, Rep. Dean Fisher’s House File 2481 is little more than a cruel and expensive government takeover of a dying industry. The bill is based on junk science, anecdotes and failed historic policies.…
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Kalbach: Our libraries are under attack at the Iowa Statehouse
I love my local public library. Lots of people use our libraries regularly, whether to check out books and movies, use the internet, or make copies of important documents. Iowa’s small-town public libraries are anchor institutions. They make our lives so much richer. And in addition to books, libraries provide many other services and programs.…
