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Opinion

Hearing was missed opportunity to weigh in on FD property taxes

Editorial

It seems like a segment of the Fort Dodge population has surrendered its right to complain about any potential increase in the city property tax rate that may be coming. As it stands right now, the city’s property tax rate for the 2026-2027 fiscal year is set to go up by 14 cents per $1,000 ...

Steady Leadership, Standing Apart

Local Columns

School districts all over Iowa are having a tough time right now. Enrollment is dropping, costs keep going up, and state funding isn’t keeping pace. A lot of communities have had to make painful cuts — slashing programs, letting good teachers go, and scaling back the very things families ...

It’s time for spring — and farming

Editorial

It’s getting to be that time of the year. Although it is early in the season, you just may have seen someone working in the fields already. You may have seen a tractor rolling down a rural road. If you are a farmer, perhaps you have been looking over the fields and getting the machinery ...

Momentum with intention

Local Columns

There are years when a community stays busy, and there are years that define its trajectory. For Webster County and the Fort Dodge region, 2025 was a defining year. At our annual awards dinner, as we gathered leaders, employers, public officials, educators, health care professionals, ...

Help celebrate National Ag Day

Editorial

As another growing season approaches, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship is encouraging Iowans to join in the recognition of Tuesday as National Ag Day. One goal of National Ag Day is to recognize the contribution agriculture makes in the lives of all of us. The American ...

Explaining the state’s proposed HMO tax

Local Columns

Regarding HF 2739, a bill which some of you have reached out about, here is the background and facts about the bill. It is a bill in the Ways and Means Committee, but it actually deals with the Health and Human Services budget. Iowa’s Medicaid program consumes an ever-growing amount of the ...