It’s been four years since Donald Czeck took the life of his wife, Katrin, and then his own, in their rural Silver Lake Home. Domestic violence experts used the tragedy to shine the light on why intervention is important. They explained how all domestic violence affects entire families and how all of society needs to work together to prevent future domestic violence homicides. Then last week, another violent incident shook the county. Police...
From Chuck Hassebrook Executive director and rural policy program director, Center for Rural Affairs Small towns and ordinary rural people are receiving short shrift in federal policy. The Center for Rural Affairs’ recent study found that USDA spent twice as much on subsidies to just the 20 biggest farms in each of 13 leading farm states — 260 mega farms — as it spent on rural development programs to create strong communities and economi...
Same-sex marriage would amount to a hostile takeover From Marjorie Davies Hutchinson Since my letter explaining my objection to same-sex marriage was printed in the Leader, I have been privileged to receive a copy of a list published by the Ruth Institute. The list shows 77 nonreligious reasons to support a man-woman marriage. No. 77 says “same-sex marriage amounts to a hostile takeover of civil society by the state.” I believe that the f...
Like Mayor Steve Cook, we were startled to learn Hutchinson will soon be split into two House districts. “How’s that going to work?” we asked. But the more the mayor thought about it, the more optimistic he was about the news. We’ve come around, too. And there’s a whole lot more good news behind the redistricting plan. Yes, there are obvious questions about Hutchinson’s representation on the McLeod County Board of Commissioners, but this tw...
From Sen. Scott Newman District 18, R-Hutchinson The Legislature is working on a number of government reforms this session. I am working on three bills in particular that I feel are important to provide regulatory relief to the private sector. The reforms are as follows: Rule Making Authority SF 575: Currently, Minnesota statutes give legislative, administrative and quasi-judicial functions to state agencies. The amount of autonomy state a...