LINCOLN - Gov. Pete Ricketts said Wednesday that he and leaders of the Legislature's Revenue Committee have not yet settled on a plan for additional property tax relief, but he believes that "we're going to get something done" during the 2020 legislative session.
"I'm confident we'll get a solution we can get agreement on," the governor said during a telephone conference call from Germany, where he's leading a Nebraska trade mission this week.
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LINCOLN — State Sen. Tony Vargas of Omaha has announced that he will seek reelection to his District 7 seat in the Nebraska Legislature. Vargas, a 35-year-old consultant for nonprofit groups, was first elected to the Legislature in 2016. District 7 covers downtown and South Omaha east of the Kennedy Freeway.
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OMAHA - The lawsuit holding up the controversial proposed Douglas County courthouse annex and juvenile detention center could come down to the definition of a two-word phrase: “used jointly.”
State statutes require that facilities created or renovated by public building commissions in Nebraska’s largest cities be used jointly by those cities and their respective counties. But the law doesn’t define what “joint use” is.
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LINCOLN — If all goes well during the next six months, Nebraska counties will be tallying up the 2020 election results with new equipment. State election officials are in the process of acquiring new ballot-counting machines for all 93 Nebraska counties. They also are getting new devices for every polling place that voters with disabilities can use to mark ballots.
Secretary of State Bob Evnen called the purchases a step toward ensuring that Nebraska elections remain “secure, reliable and accurate.”
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LINCOLN - The Legislature's Revenue Committee is attempting to forge a property tax relief plan centered on state school aid that is acceptable to Gov. Pete Ricketts and one that can command the 33 votes required to overcome a filibuster by its legislative opponents.
A proposal discussed by the committee during an executive session last week would be a smaller-ball alternative to a more ambitious plan that had been tentatively formulated around substantial tax reform.
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LINCOLN - Nebraska's rural areas are struggling with a major shortage of high-speed internet, and people who live there are likely paying more for service than their urban counterparts, according to a new report commissioned by state lawmakers.
The report by the Rural Broadband Task Force says just 63% of rural Nebraskans have access to fixed, high-speed broadband service capable of handling downloads at 25 megabytes per second or faster. That's the speed typically recommended to watch high-definition movies, use video-chatting services and download large data files.
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President Trump said Monday that he would meet with vaping-industry representatives as he nears a decision that could bar sales of sweet, fruit-flavored e-cigarettes aimed at young people, raising concerns among public-health advocates that the measure could be diluted.
Mr. Trump wrote in a tweet Monday morning. “Children’s health & safety, together with jobs, will be a focus..” of a planned meeting with stakeholders of the issue.
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SARPY COUNTY - For decades, more than half of Nebraska’s fastest-growing county has sat untouched and undeveloped, unable to support houses and shops and businesses because it lacks a basic component of modern infrastructure: the sewer line.
In 30 to 50 years, if all goes to plan, the southern half of Sarpy County could undergo a transformation, welcoming housing subdivisions and mixed-use retail buildings, industrial parks and perhaps even more data centers.
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Google is engaged with one of the U.S.’s largest health-care systems on a project to collect and crunch the detailed personal-health information of millions of people across 21 states.
The initiative, code-named “Project Nightingale,” appears to be the biggest effort yet by a Silicon Valley giant to gain a toehold in the health-care industry through the handling of patients’ medical data. Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are also aggressively pushing into health care, though they haven’t yet struck deals of this scope.
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LINCOLN - When Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appeared at a fundraising dinner for the Nebraska Democratic Party last month, Republicans were waiting for her in Omaha and on social media.
At a news conference, Republicans from Nebraska's federal delegation and Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson urged Pelosi to bring the Trump administration's trade agreement to a vote in the House.
The argument goes like this: The United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, abbreviated as USMCA, which would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, would provide a boon to Nebraska's economic future.
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LINCOLN — Nebraska officials want $8.8 million this year to help keep patients from killing themselves at the state psychiatric hospital in Lincoln. The Department of Health and Human Services submitted the budget request after a September inspection found numerous “ligature risks” at the Lincoln Regional Center.
Ligature risks are objects or fixtures that patients could use to hang or choke themselves, said Karen Harker, deputy director of finance for the HHS Behavioral Health Division.
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OMAHA - Omaha’s firefighters union wanted Mayor Jean Stothert charged with felony witness tampering over comments she made to a character reference who went to bat for an embattled fire union president. The character witness the fire union says Stothert tried to tamper with: Rep. Don Bacon.
Under state law, a person tampers with a witness if they attempt to induce a witness to “testify falsely or withhold any testimony, information, document or thing.”
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LINCOLN - Corrections Director Scott Frakes oversees a crowded prison system that has grown significantly over the past two years, despite reforms intended to reduce the inmate population.
Frakes went to the Capitol on Friday afternoon to talk to the Legislature's Judiciary Committee about how the Department of Correctional Services goes about preparing inmates to reenter society.
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LINCOLN — Business owner David Rogers has announced plans to challenge State Sen. Lynne Walz for the legislative seat representing Fremont and the rest of Dodge County.
Rogers is the owner and president of Professional HPP Services, a company that repairs and services ultrahigh-pressure equipment around the world, and an adjunct professor of cybersecurity at Bellevue University. He is a U.S. Air Force veteran who came to Nebraska when he was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base. He also is former chairman of the Dodge County Republican Party.
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OMAHA - Creighton University students who cast ballots Tuesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of divesting university funds from the fossil fuel industry.
The students said through their referendum that Creighton should freeze any new investments in fossil fuels. By 2025, the students say, Creighton should divest the 2% of its endowment that is invested in the top 200 carbon-emitting fossil fuel companies. Creighton’s endowment was about $570 million as of mid-2018.
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DES MOINES, Iowa — A late harvest, wet grain and the fall chill have combined to multiply demand for propane in Iowa, Nebraska and other states, according to agriculture and propane industry officials. Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig said that the demand on the supply system during the last week to 10 days has been tremendous.
"It's really created a supply pinch," Naig said, adding that nearly every bushel of corn needs to be dried.
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SARPY COUNTY - Now that Facebook has a data center up and running in Sarpy County, the social media giant is planning to lend a hand in the neighborhood.
The company is accepting applications for the Facebook Community Action Grants program, which will provide funding to several projects focused on technology, connection and STEM education in the county. Successful applications will come from organizations that do one of the following: address critical community needs through the power of technology; connect people online or off; or improve local science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.
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LINCOLN — State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha has announced that he’ll seek reelection to represent north Omaha and northeast Douglas County in the State Legislature.
“If District 13 sends me back, I’ll continue to grow our state and move Nebraska from good to great,” Wayne said. Wayne, a 40-year-old attorney, is chairman of the Legislature’s Urban Affairs Committee. This spring, he won passage of bills to allow growing of industrial hemp in the state and create a Regional Metropolitan Transit Authority in the Omaha area.
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LINCOLN — The two-tier Medicaid system that officials are proposing as a way to cover more low-income Nebraskans would be unique to the state.
The Heritage Health Adult system would include work, wellness and personal responsibility requirements, many of which have been tried by other states. However, the combination of requirements and the penalties for failing to meet requirements would be new.
As outlined by state officials, people would not get dental, vision and over-the-counter medication coverage if they fall short on any of the requirements. But they could still keep physical, medical and prescription drug coverage. Reviews would be done every six months to determine compliance.
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LINCOLN - Just three months after dropping food service, the Green Flash Brewhouse and Taproom may have called it quits altogether.
The brewery at 1630 P St. has not been open since at least Friday, although it has not made any announcement on its website or social media pages. The business's phone message also does not say anything about it being closed.
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