Letter to the Editor: Keeping current on local news could save a person money!

After reading the reporting of Newton’s tax levy hearing in the Newton News, I realized that what I’d suspected all along from just talking to folks around town, was true. That too many folks in Newton are woefully uninformed about what is happening in their own community. The fact that so many folks 65 and older were surprised and even skeptical to hear they could have been saving money all this time by simply going to the county assessor’s office and filling out a property tax exemption form is sad. I’d like to ask these folk how and from what sources do they get their local news? And by local, I am talking specifically about Newton and Jasper County. I learned about, and was able to take advantage of these tax exemptions, a couple years ago simply from subscribing to and reading the Newton News. Do any of those folks at this hearing subscribe to our local newspaper? Or do they just watch the TV news stations, who never mention our community unless there is an event at the Iowa Speedway, or some major crime has been committed here.

Or do they feel that scrolling through Facebook, which is mostly just a bunch of personal stories and gossip, is enough “news” for them?

An uninformed citizenry cannot effectively hold their city leaders accountable, since they have no idea what any of them are doing.

Even after all the budget cuts and paring down to only two days a week, which maybe wouldn’t have happened so much if more people would subscribe, our local newspaper is still one best source of information we have for community news, city and county government projects, events, and coverage of public meetings and hearings. If we were to lose our newspaper, how would folks find out about things going on around here that directly affect their lives? I hope we never get to that point.

I remember a time when most folks subscribed to the state and local papers and read them every day. We seemed to be a more informed community then, now it’s mostly Facebook personal stories and gossip that passes for “news”.

I would encourage those folks at that hearing to start subscribing to the paper. Maybe if they had done so they would have saved themselves the cost of a subscription, and a whole lot more, by filling out a form and getting a break on their taxes.

It’s something to consider, anyway.

John Moore

Newton