Now’s the time to get involved
You may have noticed a growing sense of excitement in the community surrounding the development of trails in our community generally and for the completion of the T-Bone trail specifically.
What a great thing that is! A lot of people who have been working for a long time in near obscurity on the issue are now seeing a renewed interest in the project and are hopeful that, if not the end at least the beginning of the end, is in sight. Renewed interest is popping up everywhere and there is no doubt the public supports the project.
There are probably a number of reasons for this, but the completion of the Audubon County leg of the T-Bone trail and the pending change in Atlantic City government are certainly at the top of those.
Last week nearly 30 people attended a meeting of the Trails group charged with developing a route from the end of the current T-Boine trail-head three miles north of town, into Atlantic. The remarkable thing about that was the meeting had almost no publicity with word spreading via email and word of mouth. And then on Thursday night around 20 people attended a meeting of the Nishna Vally Trails and Friends group at the Methodist Church where attendees were asked to dream big - to think about the big picture and what type of trail systems they would like to see throughout the community and how it would interact with the community.
But there is no doubt that the first step is completing the T-Bone trail and there are still a number of issues to work out. The large Trails Group is being pared down to a more manageable size consisting of representatives from the County, County Conservation Board, City, City Parks and Rec Department and Nishna Valley Trails group. The new streamlined group will be in charge of selecting the final route of the trail into the community along with spear-heading the project and working with government entities on funding, acquiring right-of-way and all the other issues that go into a project of this size.
The group is considering a number or possible routes to connect the end of the trail with the trail system at the new Schildberg Recreation area, each with their own pros and cons. They hope to begin meeting in the next couple of weeks to begin working out the details.
But the most encouraging thing is that the attitude seems to have changed. The sentiment is no long IF the trial will get to town but WHEN.
It’s difficult to pin down how long the process might take and that’s frustrating. But it is what it is. I’s must be dotted and T’s must crossed.
Another positive sign is commitment from Mayor Elect Dave Jones earlier this week. Jones, who has always supported trails, came and said he wanted to move ahead with Schildberg project, and included the possibility of bonding to provide funding and approaching the Vision Iowa people to see if there might be a way to reapply for a new grant.
There’s a lot of baggage that comes with the word “bond” and at least one councilman is already making noises about his objection to the project.
But I applaud Jones, it’s a discussion that needs to be held, and he is absolutely right in asking if not now, when?

There is also support on the county level county with supervisor Dave Dunfee on board along as are other board members. Micah Lee, the County Conservation Director and members of the Conservation board also support the project. Along with many others.
The fact is that this project cannot be done without government participation and it’s heartening to see not just support and enthusiasm, but action from our government representatives.
But the truth is this project needs public involvement, government alone cannot, and will not get the trail into town. Government officials are representatives. The react to wishes of those who elected them. They need to know that the public considers this project important. Without the public outcry it’s all too easy to move on to less complicated or controversial issues.
The good news is that the public is responding. People are turning out to meetings, ideas are being shared and plans are being made. But help is always needed. If you have any interest at all I urge you to get involved. Contact a member of the Nishna Valley Trails Group for more information or to find out how you can help. A good place to start would be contacting Rosie Jones, who works at the Nishna Valley YMCA, she’s a wealth of information and an enthusiastic supporter of trails in general. In future columns I’ll run more contact information and hopefully projects you can help with.
There is no disputing that trails and recreational areas are vital to a community’s overall health. Literally. Their popularity is evident across the state and it’s a rare day you don’t see someone out using the T-Bone trail between the interstate and Audubon.
People will travel to use a quality trail. Thousands during the summer attend the “Taco Ride” every Thursday from Council Bluffs to Mineola. That ride has inspired a local group to ride the T-Bone trail every Thursday and stop for dinner in Brayton. Groups from Des Moines and other communities have come to ride the T-Bone trail, again stopping in Brayton or other communities along the way to eat, drink and rest.
Soon, I hope, groups will be able to start or stop their outing from Chestnut street after eating at one of our downtown establishments. All we need is the will to do it and the determination to carry through.
Join us, and together we can make this project a reality. All you need to do is bring your dreams.

Thanks Atlantic!
Tuesday night the people of Atlantic spoke with a loud and clear voice stating unequivocally that they wanted a progressive community. By an overwhelming majority residents elected Dave Jones mayor (1,500 votes to 177 for Dave Wheatley, his nearest competitor). That's good for lots of reasons not the least of which is that Jones supported the TIF financing for the proposed Boulders Hotel project, which was seemingly lost after the financing was voted down by Wheatley and three other council members.
Not it appears the project may not be as dead now as we had originally thought. A few weeks ago a representative from the organization called me to request copies of an editorial I had written. I asked them if there was any hope for the company to reconsider its decision not to build here. I was told that, there might be, depending on the outcome of the election.
Well the community spoke, and with any luck, and hard work, we may be able to salvage that project - not to mention start rebuilding our community's reputation.
I think Tuesday night's election was a watershed moment for the community. The community could not have spoken more clearly about what direction it wants to travel and I couldn't be happier.
Thanks Atlantic!

AC wins, CAM loses...

Adair Casey trounced East Mills Monday night 44-32 ( it didn't seem even that close) and will now play Stanton Friday night at 7 p.m. in Stanton.
I was really sorry to see CAM lose, (to Stanton on Monday 28-26 in a heartbreaker) and was looking forward to a AC-CAM rematch, but no.
So good luck Bombers

Halloween in Atlantic

CAMtastic!
If you missed the CAM Cougars game Wednesday night against Sidney you missed a real doozy! (That's right, I used the word DOOZY). CAMS won it 34-28 but only after stopping a last second drive that ended on the Cougar five-yard line.
If you've never seen and 8-man football game, this is what makes the concept great. The games are usually very competitive and anyone can win. The Cougars will travel to Stanton on Monday night to face the top ranked team in the state.
Go Cougars!

Congratulations are in order:

Congrats to the Atlantic Trojann Volleyball team which defeated a tough Winterset team Monday night in Winterset. The Trojanns will take on Creston Thursday night in Atlantic in the second round of regional playoff action.
And though I don't have pictures of them, a big Congratulations to the Atlantic Trojann Cross Country team which won their first District Championship since 2003 and will head to the state meet in Fort Dodge this weekend.
Photos by Jeff Lundquist

Council takes another step backwards
It was something like a scene from a movie Wednesday night at the Atlantic City Council meeting. First there was a dramatic pause, while a dozen or so people waited expectantly.Then a stunned silence after the final vote had been cast and the bombshell exploded.
Last Wednesday the Atlantic City Council voted 4-3 to deny a $295,000 TIF application for a new hotel on the west side of town. Without that up-front funding, hotel officials said it would be difficult to get financing and the project would likely die. A $1.5 million project expected to generate over $54,000 a year in additional property taxes in the community had just disappeared and no one saw it coming.
Of course there was no reason anyone should have. Just a couple of weeks earlier three of the four dissenters had joined with the majority in a 6-1 vote to state the city's intent to pursue the bonding method for the project, which is what was requested by developers in their TIF application.
Almost immediately the four that voted against it all quickly voiced their support for the project, right after casting the votes that killed it. They all claimed their votes had nothing to do with the merits of the project just the method of funding the city was considering. They said they preferred a tax rebate rather than a TIF bond. But that option had been debated and voted on and ultimately rejected.
Just to be clear, what that meant was that, after discussing all the options, the council agreed by a vote of 6-1 that it intended to assist the project with a TIF bond. NOT a tax rebate, that idea was off the table once that vote passed. The council did NOT have the option of considering a different type of funding without starting the process over, and every one of the council members knew that because it was discussed at council meetings. The council intended to proceed with the bond issue, or so the majority at the time said.
That action was in effect the green light for developers to begin lining up their financing.
But Wednesday night three of the council members, Kern Miller, Pat Simmons and John Rueb, decided to change their mind and pull the rug out from under the feet of the developers of the project, and then actually had the nerve to claim they were shocked, shocked they said, that the company may now want to pass on the project.
In fact it was nothing short of a stab in the back and no amount of excuse making will change that.
Over the past few years it's become clear that there are members on this council that are clearly anti-development, going so far as to include personal attacks against individuals and the pursuit of personal vendettas. I don't know to what extent that played a role in Wednesday night's vote but the players have become all too familiar and the outcome all too common.
In the end it was just another in an increaingly long line of black eyes for the city.
Even in this case, in which all four claimed to support the project before killing it, the tone of the debate prior to the vote was on the accusatory side.
One council member suggested that it was unfair to ask the citizens to "pay" for the bond, even though every penny would have been repaid through property taxes. Somehow the project would be cheating us.
Another councilman told the developers, that, in effect, they would be bad neighbors if they didn't change their proposal and request the rebate instead.
Again, all of this after the council had already told them they "intended" to proceed with the bond. So much for keeping the city's word.
What makes this terrible decision doubly bad is that the new hotel would have been built on the west side of town in an area ripe for new development. It was a project that could have attracted other businesses, such as restaurants to cater to patrons staying in the 31 rooms planned for the new hotel.
The council voted against those businesses.
Chamber and Economic Development officials say that the availability of the additional rooms would have also opened the city up to more and bigger conferences and activities at the convention center. Bigger events means more people and more money spent in the community.
But the council voted against that.
All of this comes on the heels of the city being forced to return $100,000 Vision Iowa grant to the state because in five years they couldn't meet the requirements they had agreed to. Again there is a long list of excuses, but the bottom line is another project to enhance the community has been hurt along with the city's reputation.
Those that are responsible will no doubt deny all this. They will kick and scream and howl that they have been misrepresented and were only looking out for the best interests of the people. But they are wrong. Stagnation is not in the best interest of the community, and that, unfortunately, is what they voted for. Why they took that action, and I don't mean the lame excuses they've given, only they know.
This was a company that was ready to invest in the community, had planned to begin construction this fall and had already placed large orders with local companies. All that went away Wednesday night.
The city is in a competitive market when it comes to attracting new business, but unfortunately it appears to be a competition we are determined to lose. And that's a movie without a happy ending.

Iowa Boy Tackles the T-Bone!

Below is a quote from Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger on the T-Bone trail after a Memorial Day visit. A great story that you need to read!

"Highest priority now for the T-Bone Trail must be the development of it from Atlantic northeast to connect with what’s already been completed. It’s hard to imagine that Audubon (pop. 2,400), Exira (800), Brayton (150) and even tiny Hamlin and Lorah have trail access while Atlantic (pop. 7,300) does not."

LINK to complete story

Couldn't have said it better myself!

We need a Hotel tax...
But first some caveats
The Atlantic City Council has been asked for the fourth time to consider a hotel motel tax and for the fourth time I think it’s a good idea in theory, it’s the details that are problematic.
For the record, I have always supported a hotel/motel tax in Atlantic which, by state law, requires that 50 percent be used for “recreation, convention, cultural or entertainment facilities, including, but not limited to, memorial buildings, halls and monuments, civic centers, convention buildings, auditoriums, coliseums, and parking areas or facilities located at those recreation, convention, cultural or entertainment facilities.”
In other words all those things that are difficult to find funding for and are usually the first to come under the budget cutting knife.
The new tax would add up to 7 percent on hotel and motel rooms and is expected to raise between $75,000 and $80,000 a year. Supporters say they will use the money to create the Atlantic Convention and Visitors Bureau, and entity run by the Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce, that would have a part-time employee working on promoting conferences, festivals and other events. The remaining 25 percent would go to the Parks and Recreation department for general use.
It’s the first part I have a problem with. To be clear, I have NO problem with the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce or the job they are doing. I think they do a fantastic job putting on nearly every community event you can think of, often without enough money or volunteers. However, I do not like the idea of dedicating a public tax to a private entity.
The problems with that idea are many, not the least of which is oversight. As a private entity the chamber is under no obligation to open its books to the public. The public will have no way of knowing how its money is being used. Residents will have no input on budgets or management.
In effect the city would be turning over a good chunk of its money with little more than a promise to spend it wisely. Unfortunately that’s not enough.
The best answer is to make the Atlantic Convention and Visitors Bureau a city entity run by city employees. That way the information remains public and the city has control over how its money is spent and the Bureau is run. The problem is it’s an idea the city probably doesn’t want and the council is unlikely to support.
A previous 2 percent hotel tax proposal died in 2003 when city officials balked at that very proposal. City employees come with salaries, benefits and other costs. And while this position would come with a built in funding source, it is still unlikely to sway a council that has recently been forced to reduce city positions.
So could there be a compromise? Possibly. After all public money is given to private entities all the time, but it is at the discretion of a local governing board. Not mandated by a dedicated tax. So perhaps the ACVB could be formed as a quasi-public board, that included at least an equal number of elected or appointed city officials and chamber members, and which all financial records would be available for public inspection.
The director of the agency would have to be a Chamber employee, funded with the new tax money. The Chamber would have the right to hire, or fire, whoever they wanted, while the city would ultimately have the option of funding or not funding, the group. Both sides would have to work together.
In the end I think it’s an idea worth pursuing. Too many other communities already have the tax, including Harlan, Walnut and Avoca. New hotels are being built or have recently been built in two of those communities, the tax hasn’t seemed to hurt business there, which is the usual argument put forward.
The city of Atlantic needs to be competitive with its neighbors and this is a tool that other cities have already taken up. They now have an advantage we don’t.
The council should allow a vote on the tax, but not without guaranteeing its citizens adequate protection.

Downtown Flower Planting in Atlantic!

A sure sign summer is just around the corner! Thanks to all the volunteers!




Courtesy of Atlantic News Telegraph.com

Name that tune


I'm just wondering where high school and middle school band directors pick their songs from. Is there a "Big Book of Unknown Songs" that comes with the job. Don't get me wrong, the various Atlantic, bands, choirs, show choirs, chorus (choruses, chorusi?) et al., sound great.. It's just that they never sing songs you've ever heard of. And usually in Latin.
Would it kill them to sing "Take Me Home Country Roads" once in a while. Everyone LOVES that song.
I'm just sayin...

Don't let trail grant idea die!

I drove to Audubon Tuesday and, as usual, saw several bikers and walkers out using the T-Bone trail from the interstate all the way to Exira. (photo from Audubon County website). Work has also been done preparing the section from Exira north to Hamlin, it looks like that will be done this spring or summer.
While it’s great that the T-Bone trail continues to grow in both length and popularity, it’s frustrating that residents of Atlantic must still travel out into the country, along gravel roads, to connect to the trial.
Efforts are being made to bring the trail into Atlantic through the efforts of a joint city-county committee, most likely along the railroad right-of-way north of Atlantic and into the quarry from the north along Buck Creek Road.
But that plan suffered a setback when a county grant application was recently turned town by the technical committee in charge of reviewing the grant requests and passing them on for possible approval.
The $25,000 grant would have come from the Department of Transportation and be funded through stimulus money. The problem, I’m told, is that the grant included money for an evaluation by an bridge engineer of the Fair River Road bridge over the Nishnabotna River as to the suitability for converting it into a pedestrian bridge. The bridge was being considered as part of “spur” off the main trail. It was the main trail the committee was concerned about, which was also addressed, but not the exclusive in the application.
But all hope may not be lost.
The money to fund this study was from the same pot that the city of Atlantic is using to fund the repair of a small bridge on Nishna Street. That project was generously estimated to cost around $300,000. But last week the city council agreed to proceed with a much cheaper repair option that would cost in the neighborhood of $70,000. That leaves $230,000 that will be returned to the pot.
Money that could be used to fund the part of original grant for a comprehensive study that will identify the best options to move forward to connect the trail to Atlantic and include evaluations of the ownership of property and the availability of easements as well as issues of grade and pedestrian safety. With perhaps a little extra thrown in for actually acquiring some of the right-of-way and building a trail.
Under the original grant the county was required to contribute 20 percent from local funds and officials from the Nishna Valley Trail group, had committed $3,500 of the $5,000 local match. The bigger the grant, the bigger the local match which will be an issue the county will have to consider.
The importance of recreational facilities, including trails, in communities has been well documented. And with city and county officials working together as they are, and with federal and state stimulus money sitting on the table, is there any reason why real progress shouldn’t be made. We may not get another opportunity like this.
I hope county officials will consider reapplying for the grant and, if possible, expanding the scope to include progress beyond the study stage. It’s important that the grant set back be seen as a speed bump along the way rather than a stop sign.

The problem with repeating the past...

The words of the president seemed eerily familiar, the country was in the midst of a serious financial crisis, unemployment was out of control, and the word of the young, vibrant Democrat, filled the country with hope. His plan for the first 100 days of his term included a sweeping program to stimulate the economy, reduce the unemployed and help those in danger of losing their homes.
The cost would be staggering and plunge the country deep into debt.
The words were those of Franklin Roosevelt and I was struck by the similarity of the events and solutions to our current situation.
The following is from the White House’ website (http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/franklindroosevelt/):

“He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days," he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt's New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.”

Eerie isn’t it.
In 1933 Edwin P. (E.P.) Chase wrote what would become a Pulitzer Prize winning column, on the country’s financial situation. It too sounds eerily familiar, substitute the words home of automobile and it’s almost as if it could have been written this week.
It has been said that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. So in that spirit I’m reprinting Mr. Chase’s column… enjoy.

(DECEMBER 2, 1933)
Where Is Our Money?

EDWIN P. CHASE
Atlantic (Iowa) News-Telegraph

It is announced that at 10 o'clock tonight, Iowa time, William Randolph Hearst, well-known publisher, will broadcast an address on the subject which appears at the caption of this article.
The subject is a broad one and permits of many ramifications. Likewise the query is a live one and has been for several years with many people who formerly were in comparative affluence and have found themselves suddenly in a position where money is a scarce article. The whereabouts of the money of the individual is perhaps beside the point in this comment, if we stick to the text, as doubtless Mr. Hearst's broadcast will deal with the whereabouts of the funds of the nation as a whole, rather than the financial plight of the individual citizen; but the subject in¬trigues one and suggests a line of thought relative to the part the individual has played in rendering himself particularly susceptible to the in¬juries inflicted by the period of economic stress.
Where is our money? Here in Iowa, if competent statistics are to be believed, during the ultra-prosperous years of the world war period when money flowed like water into the coffers of the farmer and the business man and everyone else, some 200 million dollars of good Iowa money went for stocks, shares in half-mythical concerns which were worth exactly their value as a piece of printed paper. During that period and shortly thereafter a good many hundreds of millions from the middle-west went into the first and second mortgage bonds of apartment hotels and the like, security issued on appraisals inflated to the nth degree. The most of these bonds are now worth just what the stocks we referred to are worth-the value of the paper and the printing contained therein. There is no way of estimating how many hundreds of millions of money the country over went up in smoke and vanished in thin air when it suddenly a dawned on us that even the most productive land in a section like ours is n not worth $300 or $400 an acre. It took only the simplest mathematics to arrive at that conclusion, for even at the prices brought by farm products at their peak, the return on the land in this section would not pay interest on an investment of $300 or $400 an acre. It can easily be recalled that during that hectic period it was considered a mark of provincialism not to buy a new automobile every year. A lot of fur coats and a lot of diamonds and a lot of expensive clothes for both men and women were indulged in by all classes. The wage earner suddenly awoke to the fact that by buying on the installment plan he could keep up with the Joneses and he not only spent every cent he could get his hands on in many instances, but he pledged the major portion of his wages or salary months ahead to pay for " automobiles and other articles which were worn out by the time he had completed the payments.
These are but a few instances, cases in point. One might go on indefinitely telling of the wild orgy of spending and of contracting obligations without thought of the pay day and with little or no thought of the " economic soundness of such spending. Then came deflation. We got down to cases. We danced and are still paying the fiddler.

Like children we have sought someone to blame for our plight and also like children we now seek some magic way to cure our ills and expect the government to provide the cure. The man who contracted debts does not want to pay them just now, because in some instances, he cannot pay them. In every way we have met the crisis, which was thrust upon us as though we had nothing to do with producing it. As a matter of fact, we had all to do with producing it.

In the proportion that the individual citizen went haywire with extravagance and reckless spending governmental units went on the same kind of an orgy and whooped our taxes 100 percent in ten years.
Bond issues were pyramided by communities with the same disregard of the coming of the payday which characterized the individual. We built great cathedrals of education, with motion pictures and swimming pools and all sorts of gewgaws and frills. We erected public buildings in many cases entirely beyond possible needs of communities for a hundred years. Just as private enterprise overbuilt in every direction, governmental building activities got out of bounds. The people have to pay the bill. The saturnalia of expenditure created fixed taxes, and taxes have a habit of certainty in good times and bad times alike. With our incomes and our business revenues depleted our tax bill in the main has remained the same. All an echo of the period of extravagance and wild-eyed inflation which brought about our troubles. We were talking about "two cars in every garage and a chicken in every pot," and we made much about the so-called American standard of living, whatever that meant. We insisted that all the various elements of our population should attain that standard, and we instilled into the minds of many people who could not afford it a desire for the things had by others more fortunate in life.

Oodles of people, who had no more business with an automobile than a wagon has with five wheels, bought cars. Oodles of people learned to live beyond their means.

It began to look as if it would not be long until there would be no one to do the work of the country, as all were seeking the same mythical standard to which we referred. And we still have the automobiles.
The bottom went out of things. Or it might be more appropriate to say that the top was blown off. Then the people of the United States commenced to take stock. Seeking someone to blame they listened to the fulminations of the politicians who represented the "outs" and who told that the way to cure their ills was to convert the outs into the "ins" and the ins into the outs. This they did, with their usual disregard of essentials and fundamentals. It became a pleasing fiction to attribute our plight to the tariff, and later to our money standard. The people were told that all that was necessary was to reduce the tariff, which protects American manufacture and agriculture, and all would be jake. Now they are being told that the way to put money into the hands of those who are penniless, and make it possible for the debtor to pay his obligations and start things moving on a normal basis is to cheapen our money. A lot of other experimental schemes are being worked out by an administration of which the people demand action.

We are spending huge sums of money, borrowed for the purpose, in an endeavor to squander ourselves back to prosperity. In the face of the fact that debt is one of the basic causes of our troubles, we are following the theory that incurring more debt would cure us.

And in the face of the fact that excessive taxation is another of the causes of our trouble we are laying the groundwork for more of the same, under the delusion that the application of all of these methods will relieve us of the trouble which we brought on ourselves, aided and abetted by worldwide economic upheaval.
We are a queer lot, we Americans. We expect whichever party happens to be in charge of the government to so manipulate the handling of public affairs as to afford us a cure for the results of our own folly. We seem to assume that it is possible for us to get well economically by the waving of some magic wand.

We think we can force prosperity, and to the majority of the people of the country prosperity means a return to the hectic days preceding the stock market crash of 1929. This theory disregards the fact that those hectic days were created by false and inflated values which in turn were created by a false and inflated philosophy.

In the creating of this inflation we disregard all natural laws of economics, so it is but natural for us to expect to cure the trouble by the same process. But it cannot be done. The only way back to solid ground and to a degree of prosperity and well-being commensurate with common sense and economic soundness will be by the application of thrift and hard work and the balancing of the a budget of every individual. The old haywire days are gone forever. But a large percentage of our population still believes in Santa Claus and good fairies. The cause of the present economic condition of the country, in a large measure, can be ascertained by every citizen by looking in the mirror. Each one of us contributed his share.
There is nothing new about all of this. It has been the history of things in the world since the earliest dawn of civilization. Particularly has it characterized every postwar period. Humanity never learns. We have not progressed so far in our t thinking, after all. Where is our money? The answer is not difficult. It can be told in one short sentence. We spent it.

Thanks to Mr. Charles E. Wheeler for reminding me of this and sending along a copy of the article.

This and that about this and that

Is anyone else getting tired of the endless arguments at city council meetings over engineering bids? It's gotten to the point of absurdity.. the smallest projects are now subjected to the now familiar arguments bordering on a sort of personal vendetta.

In fact you could easily make the point that much of city policy is being driven by the personal agendas of a few. If you look at the most controversial issues the council has dealt with the the past couple of years, many involve in some way, through no fault of their own, a few select residents and one particular engineering company.

Go to folder - FileFactory.com

If there is an issue coming up that involves one of those people you can be assured there will be an argument, and the usual knee-jerk reactions. It's tiresome to say the least, and in my view not helpful.

I'm not optimistic that the situation will change, not when both sides couch their positions in lofty ideals, such as "saving taxpayers money" despite choosing the higher bids on at least two projects. Or claiming the cause of fairness while calling for a needless look at engineering bids for projects already underway.

It's bickering like this that wastes everybody's time and makes you wonder if the council in progressive communities like Carroll spend this much time wasting time.

I'm just wondering....

Go to folder - FileFactory.com

On a lighter note.... Congratulations to the Atlantic Trojans Boys Basketball and Wrestling Teams, as well as the Nishna Valley YMCA Fly Sharks.

The Trojans basketball team beat Harlan two weeks ago for the first time in something like six years and nearly beat them again Wednesday night to advance to the state basketball tournament. The finished with 20-3 record and an unblemished record in representing the best of the community.

The same goes for the Atlantic Wrestling team, four members made it to the state tournament, and the team made it's first ever appearance at the state duel meet last Saturday in Cedar Rapids. I'm confident the program will continuing to grow and improve, thanks to the example set by this team, coach Duff, and a thriving youth wrestling program.

Finally ... For those that haven't heard the Nishna Valley Flying Sharks Swim team will be sending over 30 swimmers to the state meet in Marshalltown this weekend in the culmination of long, hard fought season. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am a swim parent, but will also add that no team works as hard day in and day out for months on end, often with little recognition. The athletes going to the state meet have worked hard and will no doubt make their team and community proud.

In addition, two swimmers, Laena Frederickson and Dylan Nielsen have been nominated for the state outstanding female and male swimmers. The awards will be presented during the boys and girls meets.

Dylan Nielsen and Laena Frederickson

Go Sharks!