Cowboy’s breakfast tip for a long, full life
Thu, 09/05/2024 - 12:00am
An oldie but a goodie from Publisher emeritis Bill Cooke from Sept. of 2011)
Columns & Opinions
Sacrifice is worth it
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 12:00am
Mark 1:28 tells us, “And immediately His fame spread abroad throughout all the region about Galilee.” Mark wants us to know Jesus was famous - I like that. Jesus was the first rock star, the first major celebrity. People had never seen or experienced anyone like Jesus.
Jesus inviting us to follow Him
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 12:00am
It occurs to me when I remember hymns such as “Where He Leads Me I Will Follow,” “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” “Take Up Thy Cross and Follow Me”—what does it mean to follow Jesus? Of course, literally countless sermons have addressed this; and entire books have been written about it. One that comes to my mind is the nineteenth century novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis, in which the aged apostle Peter in Rome asks a vision of the risen Christ, “Quo Vadis, Domine?” (Where are you going, Lord?)
This year’s budget; preparing for growth
Thu, 08/29/2024 - 12:00am
The last few weeks I have dedicated this column space for a discussion of the budget. We talked about reducing the tax rate over the last few years and how it will continue to go down due to the increase in new growth properties and the increase in property appraisals. But a reduction in the tax rate doesn’t always mean a reduction in taxes. So, to make sure we are working to keep the tax rate as close to the no-new-revenue rate as possible we have also worked to create a revenue model that will help reduce the reliance on property tax revenue as much as possible. We’ve done this by shifting more of the revenue to the Fees & Commissions and Sales Taxes coming from the growth the county is experiencing and will continue to experience.