With fingers crossed, shovels and snow blowers primed, we waited for “the” snowstorm of the season to hit our area.
     Once again, Mother Nature fooled us – and we let out a sigh of relief. Oh yes, we knew this was still March and big dumpings of snow was not only a possibility, but a definite reality. Remember last year?

There’s been a piece of legislation “making the rounds” recently that is not only worrisome, but somewhat frightening to Michigan’s governmental units.
     House Bill 4214 would “repeal the Local Government Fiscal Responsibility Act and create the ‘Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act,’ which similarly would provide for the review, management, and control of the financial and other operations of a local government…or a school district.”

Attendance requested
To the editor:
  The scheduled March 3 Governing Board meeting was changed to March 17.  The reason given was the February financial reports would not be ready by March 3.  The dates and times of the Governing Board changes were posted but the Finance Board meetings were not.

News reports say close to 100,000 people turned out in Madison last Saturday for a demonstration on behalf of Wisconsin’s public union workers. But that battle seems to be over.
 A few days earlier, the Wisconsin Legislature approved Gov. Scott Walker’s highly controversial legislation that weakens collective bargaining rights for public employee unions.
 The bill also increases workers’ contributions to pension plans and health care. It was proposed to help address a $3.6 billion shortfall in the Wisconsin state budget.
 That part wasn’t controversial. Union officials were willing to go along with workers paying a bigger share of their benefits.

Opportunity for expansion
To the editor:
 The Dickinson-Iron District Health Department has secured grant funding to help expand the existing farmers' markets in Iron County.
 The funding will help facilitate the physical and promotional needs of this program that provides an opportunity for people to purchase fresh, locally grown produce from regional farmers.

We’ve become a very angry country in the past couple of years. No one seems interested in resolving issues by putting them ALL out on the table for discussion and discourse.
  We’ve also seemed to have lost our sense of common courtesy and common decency. It used to be that our belief in our rights as citizens of a free country extended to our neighbors. We’ve lost that touch. We’re right and you’re wrong seems to be the prevailing philosophy.

Information asked
To the editor:
 Recently ads have been running in this paper regarding the recovery of missing firearms that belong to my brother, Bill Winton. Those guns are part of his collection and are valued at more than $23,000. Some of them are very old and irreplaceable, such as a .303 Savage that belonged to our grandfather. It has a lot of sentimental value for both of us and would not be valued for any other reason than money, by the person holding it.

Last summer, there were several programs available to residents to try out (if you haven’t already) compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) in their homes.
 Our 130-year association with the incandescent light bulb is ending. Under federal law, incandescent bulbs are being phased out beginning next year when American manufacturers no longer will be allowed to make 100-watt bulbs. This, according to msnbc.com, by Jan. 1, 2014, the only incandescent left on the market will be three-way bulbs, plant lights and appliance lights.

 Nothing we say in an editorial here in little ol’ Iron County is going to enlighten the policy-warriors and decisions-makers in Washington, in Lansing or—yes—in Madison. But we’ll just put this out for what it’s worth.

Service is alive and well
To the editor:
 My mother recently had knee replacement surgery at NorthStar Health Systems.