One of my top priorities this morning was to mix up weed killer and get some spraying done. I normally do everything I can to keep from using any kind of herbicides, but there come those times when the battle against them gets too great. I’m of the belief that the late Spring and continued rains and hot weather this year have caused them to grow and multiply exponentially.
Just around noontime, it started to lightly rain which caused me a little distress in thinking that all that time spraying those weeds may have been for naught. I’ll have to look on that bottle to see how many hours must pass before it takes effect on the plants. If they didn’t get killed, I’ll have to be back out again next week. I won’t be able to see if they were affected for several days or more.
My public open house at 716 S. Taylor was a success today to where there were people in attendance nearly the entire time. I was quick to point out that there wasn’t any water seepage in its basement during all the rains and flooding. Basement water seepage has always been a big pet peeve of mine. The basement in 716 S. Taylor doesn’t even smell damp which is also amazing in this weather.
I happened to get on the subject of Clear Lake’s real estate market with one of the lookers, and she was in total agreement that their housing prices are way out of control, along with their real estate taxes. With the recent updated assessments in Mason City and Cerro Gordo County, I’m sure there’ll be all that many more squealing like pigs when they get their tax bills.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s far too much waste and overlapping of services in our State’s Counties. Just for example, don’t you think it would be more economical to have regional County governments? Most people don’t even go to the Courthouse anymore to pay taxes or buy license plates and registrations for their vehicles. The Recorder’s Office is getting all the more “E-filings” which means people aren’t even driving or mailing documents to be recorded. And of course, the County Clerk of Court’s office is now online with their filings as well. If you want to file a small claims, you have to do it online.
Just think how much money would be saved if we had say Floyd, Cerro Gordo, Worth, Winnebago, Hancock, Mitchell, and Franklin Counties all combined into one entity. As far as the County Supervisors are concerned, we would still have three, but they’d be allotted certain districts containing an equal third of voters. Every so often, some have talked about building a new Courthouse, so why don’t we build a regional one in the near center of those combined Counties? Doesn’t my idea sound like a good plan to save tax dollars? If you would ever take the time to look at a given County’s budget, I think you would agree. We could call it the North Central Iowa Cluster of Counties.
I hope all of you are enjoying your Saturday evening, and wishing you all a memorable day of mid-July tomorrow.
Tonight’s one-liner is: Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, because your character is what you really are, and your reputation is merely what others think you are.
