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On Martha-Ellen Tye

I grew up as a child with a dad who was serving in the Air Force. I attended eight different schools in places ranging from Germany to Nebraska to California with a few others to boot, just to graduate high school. The most permanent home I knew was Marshalltown, where my grandparents, ...

The parking lot test and the steel mill exception

There is a simple way to assess how much Iowa governments think ordinary citizens deserve to know, and engage in the debate, when officials have an initiative they are eager to undertake. Call it the parking lot test. The recent whirlwind of economic events in Iowa suggests that this time, ...

Art in our midst at the Fisher Art Museum

This is the second in a monthly series of ARTicles highlighting the current exhibit at the Marshalltown Arts & Civic Center (MACC). Titled: Seeing Anew Part 11, the exhibit features roughly half of the works from the Fisher Art Collection, the other half which comprised the original Seeing ...

What happened to Marshalltown’s data center ordinance?

I've spent a lot of time over the last few days going back through Marshalltown's data center ordinance process. Not just the current ordinance. I went back through the Planning and Zoning packets, the different drafts, the public listening sessions, the meeting minutes and the changes that ...

Voters lose when journalists don’t push for candidates’ tax returns

Iowa voters have spent this fall hearing two men who want to be the next governor call each other rich, rootless and dishonest. What Iowans have not seen, however, are documents that would settle much of the argument. Neither Zach Lahn nor Rob Sand has released his tax returns, and Iowa ...