Spencer Council Continues Budget Talks
By charguth February 23, 2021 10:50 am
Saga Communications
Spencer, IA (KICD) The Spencer city council met in workshop session Monday night in an ongoing effort to arrive at a consensus on property taxes for the upcoming year.
The three-member budget committee advocated a property tax increase from 12 dollars 53 cents per thousand dollars assessed valuation, to 12 dollars 70 cents.
Under a new state law the city council must approve a maximum levy rate each year, and that 12 – 70 figure is on the agenda for next Monday night’s regular meeting.
Councilman Ron Hanson said he’ll vote for that maximum amount next week, but vote to keep the actual levy where it is when the budget comes up for approval.
Biology: COVID-19 giving a real world lesson in natural selection
Steve Rissing
The virus that causes COVID-19 has accomplished something that school boards and other policy makers often refuse to do.
It has given us a vivid, real-time lesson in how biological evolution works, the rate at which it can occur, its consequences and the consequences of ignoring it.
Individuals don’t evolve; populations do. And COVID has reached quite a population size in its new host species.
Having found a new host population to infect, over 110 million people globally and counting, COVID-19 is exploiting its new host explosively.
Starlings (from Europe), Emerald Ash Borers (Asia), antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and herbicide-resistant weeds infesting corn and soybeans have done the same ever since we introduced them or otherwise altered their environment.
The Bidwell House Museum announces a public informational virtual meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, on Zoom. The meeting will focus on proposed land management activities at the museum, in particular on forestry and trails.
Evidence of invasive Emerald Ash Borers has been found in the museumâs woodlands. The museum is consulting with a forester about harvesting the ash trees before they become a hazard to hikers or lose their value for lumber.
Separately, the museum is also in the process of laying out several new trails on the museum property, adding about two more miles to the existing four miles of walking and interpretive trails.