Stories from Saturday, January 3, 2009

Using sales tax proceeds to pay off a bond to renovate the Keystone Hotel is more secure than using tax increment financing money, according to a report by Rex Nelson of the McCook Economic Development Corp. Nelson will give an update concerning information gathered in meetings between three attorneys and two bonding companies, about using TIF and sales tax monies to pay back bonds, at the regular city council meeting Monday, 7:30 p.m., in Council Chambers in Memorial Auditorium...

McCook firefighter/paramedic Steve Renner gets a pooch smooch from Axe, the new "fire dog" at the City of McCook fire station. The 141⁄2-week-old puppy was allowed to ride along when firefighters responded recently to a minor kitchen fire in a northwest McCook neighborhood, where he met the neighbor kids, Isaiah and Elijah Kendall. Axe rode back to the station in the fire truck with firefighter/paramedic Rick Metcalf. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)...

Like most of us, Nebraska lawmakers will have to take a close look at the budget this year and make some hard choices. While the state is expected to have cash reserves of $573 million by the end of the fiscal year, projected revenue declines could leave us $377 million in the hole without adding any new spending this year or next...

Barbara Streisand's hit song from the 1964 movie "Funny Girl," contains the words of today's column title and those words are just as relevant today as they've ever been. People really DO need people. For example, children deprived of human contact, called "feral" children in scientific lingo, grow up to have much shorter life spans, along with other mental and physical developmental disabilities, than do those exposed to human contact from birth...