Stories from Saturday, March 18, 2006

"If you always tell the truth and you don't need to remember what you said." The citizens of McCook need the truth in the city manager mess. At best, the players in the charade should get their stories straight. Which way was it? At the 3/6 meeting when Councilman Kircher requested an open public meeting on Bingham, Councilman Lyons told him it was too late. ...

Happy St. Patrick's Day to members of Legislative District 44. Appropriately, green has been a reoccurring theme for the Nebraska Legislature throughout the week. Dollars, dollars, and more dollars have been debated and discussed at length leaving some senators with a shamrock-shaded feeling.  ...

Practically everyone in this region knows that the McCook City Council is under fire again for a controversial decision they made. We've had more than a few of those in recent years. All of us remember the air base purchase, some of us remember the Council's refusal to allow McCook Community College to build a parking lot adjacent to the campus (although they did revisit that issue and changed their mind) and most, if not all of us, will long remember this most recent decision to re-hire John Bingham as our City Manager. ...

If you don't have tickets for Saturday night's production of The Sound of Music, you'd better hurry. Then again, it might already be too late, and you'll have to try for Sunday afternoon. Either way, the latest Southwest Nebraska Community Theatre production, by all accounts, is a show that can't be missed...

Is Herod in heaven? Such was the question posed by the Rev. Gary Brethour, pastor at St. Patrick's Catholic Church, during his Lenten homily Friday afternoon at Memorial United Methodist Church. It was, after all, this Herod, Herod Antipas, who had John the Baptist beheaded at the behest of his wife, Herodias, who was also his half-niece, and, somehow, in the convoluted family tree, also his half sister-in-law. ...

An ordinance that sets the city manager's salary and compensation will be introduced for approval at Monday night's regular city council meeting at 7:30 at City Council chambers. The ordinance, which would be approved under suspension of the rule of three, would establish the city manager's salary at $83,000, the retirement benefit of six and half percent of his salary, and other benefits determined by the McCook City Council...