Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The More Things Change...The More They Remain The Same...


It was our Hall County Board/County Jailer with a ridiculous grand scheme to tap into our pockets a few a days ago...now it's the City of Grand Island.  The city's golf course is showing a near third million debt load built up over the past few years.  The city folks want the "city to pay the city back" to clear the books.  This will allow them to move forward to decide whether or not to continue to run the golf course as an enterprise...funded entirely by fees...or change things and fund it with a mix of fees and local taxes.  I golf once a year just to say that I did (I find it much more relaxing to shoot things...or fall out of a boat at 2 in the morning trying to reel in a giant wiper...all on my own dime as much as possible.)  That being said...you know that I am a big pay for your own fun or stay home guy...not allowing my entertainment "needs" to be a burden on the folks that pay taxes. 

It got funny deeper into the news story...after they get the debt paid off...the City Parks Director...a guy that thinks money grows on trees...except in city parks...announces that oh-by-the-way...we need to replace diseased trees...renovate the club house...and drop a cool million on a new underground sprinkler system...and I don't know who has another couple million laying around for that.  All the while knowing that the city's annual sales tax revenue is expected to fall a half million short and we have a tanking economy...what a piece of work.  GI has great visionary leadership bar none (it amazes me how politicians are now crawling out from under the rubble realizing that we are broke and now is the time to do something about it - vote em out...they won't change.)   I say maybe we should just plow the golf course under and plant corn. 

Aside from a park or two or a standard swimming pool...I believe that's all a city or state government owes us in our search for quality life.  Taxpayers should not be obligated to fund water parks...shooting ranges...racing parks...colossal stadiums or amphitheaters etc.  If it's an entertainment venue it should be privately built and funded.  Like business used to be..."sink or swim baby."  I salute Kearney down the road for keeping their Entertainment Center/Hockey Arena private...I know it's a rough go...and I support them and encourage others to do the same.  I hope they succeed.

5 comments:

The Pip said...

I never did understand why the GI boys put in the nice shooting range on the public's nickel. It is a nice place, and I have shot there, but when you are broke, you can't spend. We need a pool in Aurora, but I think I'm gonna buy a big Bluebird bus, and charge kids to ride to GI, or Central City, or Henderson. Our pool loses $25,000 every year. Even if we had a new "water park", it would still lose at least $25,000 a year.

Getting back to the wipers, did you really take a spill lugging in a wiper? We sat on Elwood one night several years ago, and must have caught a hundred wipers just to get our last two "small" ones. I still have alewife scales and crap stuck to my rod handles and boat. Damn it was fun.

Keep building all of the cool stuff in GI. We from Podunk like to use it. Cheaper than building our own. The PiP

One Out In The Third said...

Only fell out of a boat once...I was more sober than a judge at the time...just a stupid move as the dock approached. Elwood is one of my favorite spots. I prefer catching Rainbow on the Paxton canal though...when it has water in it.

I have been out to the HSP and shot with family members a few times...Maggies Drawers snuck it in under the local taxpayers radar...and is trying to keep it alive with little budget add-ons here and there. If I were Mayor-For-A-Day I would donate that albatross to the GI Shooting Club within my first two seconds of office. Why they (GI Shooting Club) would want it befuddles me as they have a facility already in place more than adequate for a podunk town this size.

Pip...probably a smarter move to bus the kiddies from Aurora...sure vehicle/fuel/insurance/driver costs may take their toll...but in the long run...with the cost of a waterpark...upgrades that "we have to have"...repairs...staffing...and cool or wet summers...I think you are ahead.

The Pip said...

Elwood is a wonderful fishery. I just hope it doesn't get screwed up any more. With the Platte flowing from bank to bank, and all of the waterfowlers unable to hunt because of deep water, I still don't see why Elwood hasn't been filled up. The Piping Plover and the Sandhills Crane would never miss that little amount of water.

My knees really don't let me walk the canal at Paxton, anymore. It was a lot of fun in the glory years. The last time I fished for trout below the dam, three of us were trying to catch a couple trout for a buddy's dying wife. We were just below the spillway with light outfits throwing Kastmasters, and a school of 6-8lb wipers moved in and beat the hell out of us for a couple hours. Jeez, I wonder where the trout went. I'm ready for Spring. Hunting season is over. The Pip

One Out In TheThird said...

A friend and I drove out to fish the Big Mac one day...we started to back the boat into the cove on the southeast corner of the dam and I noticed a dark ring around the dock and along the shoreline as far as I could see.

Looked a little closer and the dark ring was brown trout from the edge of the water to two to three foot out. Told my friend to pull the boat and park it and we would have a little fun along the shoreline...surely one or two of these fish might make the size limit. Everyone we pulled out was about 17 inches long. We played catch and release until a fellow came along...might have been a warden an told us the story.

NGP had dumped 10,000 browns into the lake earlier in the week and the wipers were keeping them trapped in the cove. The guy said if we stayed there long enough the browns would start jumping up on the bank. Meaning that the wipers were making a run. He also said someone had pulled a 45 pound wiper out of the cove earlier in the week. We had our fun and as it turns out our catch and release fish were the only ones we caught that day.

Makes you yearn for real fishing.

The Pip said...

We had Browns, Rainbows, and Cohos. Next came Wipers and Stripers. Now you can walk across the lake on the bows of walleye boats. Every boat out there has GPS, Sonar, Vexlar, and more waypoints than a machine can hold. Most of all, they all have Iowa Fish Finders.(binoculars).

We caught three or four walleyes a couple years ago, and a big Colorado boat damn near anchored on top of us. I gave an appropriate alcohol related response. "There must not be any gay men in Colorado, cuz all of the coc______kers are fishing at Big Mac" They picked up anchor and left. What I said was bad, but it sure felt good. Fish on!!!!