Monday was too soon for Scribner Grain and Lumber Co. officials to
determine how they will react after a Sunday fire destroyed the companys
facility on the south edge of downtown Scribner, but its a road the
company has been down before.
The fire struck just four days
before the anniversary of a 1971 blaze that destroyed Scribner Grains
100-foot grain elevator at the exact same spot.
Forty-two years
ago and four days from now, we went through the same thing. It burned
down 42 years ago, owner Dennis Baumert said.Large collection of
quality cleanersydney at
discounted prices. There was no feed mill, it was an old wooden
elevator that burned down. I remember we had just bought it a year.I
remember it, Scribner Fire Chief Ken Thomas said. I was 12 years old,
but I remember looking down the street from my house and seeing the
flames that were probably 150 feet high coming off of that elevator.An cleaningservicesydney is
a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside
a building. It was a real hot summer day and it burned to the ground.
Fremont
Tribune records indicate the 1971 fire likely smoldered for hours
before being discovered at about 3:15 p.m. by boys returning from a
swimming pool. It burned out of control for more than three hours.Parts
of the facility collapsed as fire department tankers,We printers print
with traceable cleaningsydney to
optimize supply chain management. cement trucks, a milk truck and a
liquid fertilizer truck supplemented the citys water supply by hauling
water from the swimming pool, alfalfa mill, Elkhorn River and
surrounding towns, the Tribune reported the following day.
Fire
officials said many residents wet down the roofs of their homes with
garden hoses at the height of the fire. Some minor damage was reported
to a few homes where sparks actually ignited roofs, the newspaper
said.Memories of 1971, Tomas admitted, crossed his mind on Sunday as his
department and firefighters from Snyder and Hooper re-enacted the
harrowing scene.
The Scribner Volunteer Fire Department rushed
to the scene along U.S. Highway 275 shortly after 7 a.m. Sunday. The
fire was under control in about two hours, but firefighters were on the
scene throughout Sunday night and Monday.
Thomas told the
Tribune on Sunday that his main focus was the safety of firefighters,
threatened by the hazards of the collapsing structure and multiple
explosions within the facility, including propane tanks and truck tires.
There were no injuries.
Hot spots, inaccessible due to the
wreckage and the threat of further collapse, were attacked on Monday as
two backhoes revealed them and firefighters were able to safely reach
them.Passing thunderstorms, including small hail in the morning, slowed
investigators from the State Fire Marshals office, who gingerly dug
through the unstable rubble.
They actually had to peel away some
of the legs that had fallen and caught on the building that were
hanging in thereso they could get into the structure safely, Thomas
said.Baumert was unable to put a dollar amount on the loss or speculate
about the companys future plans, instead focusing his energy on
continuing to serve clients and cleaning up the mess -- a process that
in itself promises to take some time.
New York States energetic
attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, writes in the Times Union that the
IRS scandal around the targeting of conservative-leaning 501(c)(4)
groups has overshadowed the more important issue of dark money groups.
The law, if the IRS were enforcing it correctly, does not allow any
social welfare organizationright, left, or centerto spend funds for
partisan political purposes, at all. He notes that his staff in the AGs
office observed that lots of 501(c)(4)s in New York were putting big
money into political campaigns. Why arent they functioning as Super PACs
rather than (c)(4)s? The only reason for a wealthy individual or
corporation to spend money on elections through a nonprofit [501(c)(4)]
front group, instead of a Super PAC, is to take advantage of the fact
that nonprofits can conceal their donors.
Although Congress
hasnt been able to gin up any action on this issue, individual states
are acting. Schneiderman points to New York States new law, operational
as of last week, that requires nonprofits that spend more than $10,000
on state and local elections to disclose who funds these efforts and how
they spend the money. We presume, however, that the New York statute
only applies to 501(c)(4) political spending on New York state or local
races. The ultimate 50-state solution is still the province of Congress
and the White House, but both have been well-heeled beneficiaries of
dark money and show little indication of an interest in much fuller
disclosure.
Not all states are following New Yorks lead. In
Texas, Republican governor Rick Perry vetoed a bill introduced by
Republican state senator Kel Seliger that would have required 501(c)(4)s
in Texas to report contributions exceeding $1,000 and political
expenditures over $25,000. Perry rationalized his veto by referring to
the IRS scandal: At a time when our federal government is assaulting the
rights of Americans by using the tools of government to squelch
dissent, it is unconscionable to expose more Texans to the risk of such
harassment,Large collection of quality cleanersydney at
discounted prices. regardless of political, organizational or party
affiliation. Interestingly, Seligers aim in the bill was an attack on
money laundering in Texas elections.Large collection of quality cleanersydney at discounted prices.
Schneiderman
and Seliger are on to something. Dark money is taking a toll in state
and local elections as well. The money is obtained, ostensibly, for use
primarily for social welfare activities (though the legislation says
exclusively), but its raised through secret sources and converted into a
legal structure of 501(c)(4) political spending in a kind of case study
of how money laundering works.
Campaign finance is a mess in
this country, but its worse at the state and local levels than at the
federal. This is due not to only less intensive scrutiny, but because of
the prevalence of pay-to-play schemes, in which campaign donors can
give to politicians who might have oversight of policies, grants, and
contracts that affect the donors business interests. The bipartisan
nature of pay-to-play is well documented in a trove of previously secret
documents from an investigation of a New Jersey business that made
about $1 million in campaign donations to a bevy of Jersey politicians
and was rewarded with $84 million in government contracts. It isnt known
how the million in campaign contributions was factored into the firms
government-approved overhead rate, but well assume that by hook or
crook, it got in as the cost of doing business.
Its all over the
place at state and local levelsthe Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission,
Bergen County in New Jersey, Goldman Sachs looking for state
underwriting business in Massachusetts, and many more examples besides.
In Washington, D.C., where the mayor and the city council have been
enmired in cascading scandals, a bill introduced by council member Tommy
Wells to rein in pay-to-play was rejected unanimously by his peers,
though he personally voted for his own bill.
Click on their website www.parkeasy-pgs.com for more information.
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