Construction on NPPD’s newest Sunwise community solar facility began the second week of May. The location of the project is at the south end of East City Park, just past the softball and soccer fields and north of the Cowboy Trail. The solar site is scheduled to be completed this fall. The public is urged to use caution in the vicinity of the construction area.

May 23rd – May 29th, 2021 Sunday, May 23rd Investigated a report of a possible bonfire in violation of Ainsworth City Ordinance on N. Merten Street in Ainsworth.

“Ainsworth Alumni Get Togethers” Before you know it, the Ainsworth High School Alumni will be returning to Ainsworth for its annual event. If you are in one of the honored classes from the 2020 COVID-19 Alumni or this year’s honored classes that will be meeting during that time, please send your schedules for Friday evening and Saturday to the Ainsworth Star-Journal so we can publish them the week of June 23rd.

This past session, a number of good bills failed to pass. LB 364 is a bill from Senator Lou Ann Linehan called the Opportunity Scholarship Act. Senator Linehan and I both came into the legislature in 2017. She introduces this bill every session. In her bill individual and corporate taxpayers would qualify for a non-refundable tax credit equal to the amount the taxpayer contributed to a scholarship-granting organization. No taxpayer would receive a tax credit exceeding 50 percent of their state income tax. The idea is pretty simple. Nebraskans could donate money to a scholarship-granting organization and lower their income tax liability a little. Low income families with children in a public school would have the option to apply for a grant to send their kids to a private school.

Counting the Cost of Some Bills Passed by the 2021 Legislature With another regular session of the Nebraska Legislature in the books, let’s look at the impact of their actions on the state’s General Fund. The headlines have focused on: $1.4 billion in cumulative property tax relief that has been offered over several years; $20 million set aside for statewide broadband expansion and another $15 million designated for preliminaries to building a new state prison.

The Advancing of the Colors and Retiring of the Colors were conducted by American Legion Post #79 and Sons of the American Legion. More photos on Page 7.