I live next to a baseball diamond.... the old Hayes school has a good sized one and the city stopped supporting it... instead they are now going to build a $150K brand new one? Makes perfect sense... to this city...

As a person effected by the flood I am hearing a lot of people that seem to think that F.E.M.A. and the city just backed up a truck and dropped off a pile of Money and Material Items and we (flood victims) have made money off of the Flood. I also hear people say comments like " It's their stupidity for not having flood insurance." or " Well duh, its a flood plain." I would like to set the record straight on a few items, 1) Yes as a victim of a disaster I got money to help off set my loses, Did I make money? No in fact we drained our savings and checking accounts getting back on our feet. 2) We did not get a tax break from the state, if they gave it to you it was a mistake and they made darn sure to get that money back, plus interest. 3) This whole 107% for the buyout, I see this as a way off setting the double payments people have had to pay. (keep in mind you still have to pay your mortgage on your house even if it is destroyed.) 4) When purchasing our home we were told not to get flood insurance by several experts including insurance companies... I can not speak for everyone but most of the people I know now owe more then there home is worth and it will stay that way for a long time....

To me it looks as if the BOS are saying one thing "Yes we welcome an Auditor to look into the actions and see if there is wrong doing.." yet there actions are complete opposite of that. To me who has no in depth knowledge and just an average John Q. Public, it looks as if the BOS is doing everything in its power to prevent an audit. There are a lot of people myself included that would like to know 1) Where is the tax payers money is going 2) Is everything above board 3) Why is the BOS doing everything in its power to stall an audit? I for one get confused when they talk about the budget being under because the numbers are always different, and I am talking tens of thousands dollars here...

Our home also dropped in value... so we are paying more then what the house is worth, did the Mortgage company cut us any sort of break what so ever? No... It took them six months after the fact of constant calling and letters to get a response of so sorry, you can stop paying and go into foreclosure and we would still let you buy another house as long as you act fast before the foreclosue hits the systems...I loudly said I though was an odd way to do business with all the foreclosures out there.... I agree with the comment about the city has really done nothing to protect us... And this winter is reminding me of Winter of 2007... If it happens again i gone....

Where are you getting these numbers? I as you guessed was hit by the flood, we were in the house under 2 years, were told by THREE insurance companies not to get flood insurance since your not in danger of being flooded... Ok so its my fault for listening to the experts.
FEMA would pay flood Victims MAX $28,000 MINUS anything you got from insurance (if you had it) So if Insurance already paid you FEMA did not... I rebuilt my home since it was on the 500 year flood plain area and I have flood insurance now, As for the Free Loader comments, I work 40 - 60 hours a week to pay mortgage and for six months had to pay mortgage and rent while I was not in my home, I did not walk away from those responsibilities, that is not the term of a Free loader as for the people that are getting more then there house is worth, I DO NOT agree with that, however I also know the hardships they are going through, its people like you who have not had to be in there shoes or a flood victims shoes that can call me a freeloader, do you own a home? Did you have to go throw out everything you owned? Did you work a full time job then go to the house you loved and started a family in and gut the insides and rebuild? Did you have to drain your savings account so you could get back into it?

Why didn't I just let the bank take it back and let it sit and rot?- that would be what a free loader would do...

I am not gonna say I am an expert driver but when snow and ice are involved its time to slow down and pay attention... I have seen so many people driving like its summer outside and then they have panicked looks on their face when they slide through a stop sign or light and almost get hit, doesn't matter if you have all-wheel drive/ 4 wheel drive or not no traction is no traction, so please slow down, and pay attention my son was almost hit in the parking lot of Hy-Vee because someone was going to fast, I was lucky that I saw the car and grabbed him up or it would have hit him, missed me by only a few inches....

What ever happened to innocent till proven guilty?... oh wait that's right its now Guilty until proven innocent... If its true he should be punished, however if the accusations are false his lively hood has been compromised and he will probably sue the district... Now before you start tearing my opinion apart, there was a teacher in my home town that was accused of having a fling with one of his students,he was fired (not suspended), arrested, and then charges dropped before being taken to trial, long story short it was proven that on two of the three dates given for the alleged flings he(teacher) was on vacation out of state with his wife and kids, and the third time he was in the hospital recovering from back surgery... Lets just say he sued, he won lots of money, ... So I now have a wait and see attitude...

Personally it seems more and more fights are breaking out that end up in gunfire... It won't be long before one of these morons (person pulling trigger) hits the wrong house either by mistake (thinking they person they want to shoot lives at 123 anyplace when they live at 132 anyplace) or accident (stray bullet, ricochet) and some little kid gets killed. Honestly I don't care what color the shooter is every time I hear reports of gunshots, home invasions, and the violent crimes it just makes me want to pack my family up and drive away. I realize no place is really safe but the incidents just keep climbing and the reason I think is simply that the maturity level of most of the people committing the crimes has never risen past junior high.

Lets face it we can not totally blame the Mortgage companies... I put a lot of blame on them yes, but when we bought our first house we sat down and ran the numbers including closing cost and if we could make the payments if one of us lost the job, that is how we concluded price range of a house. We were approved for more then we could have ever hoped to afford because the mortgage companies at the time did not care if you foreclosed because it was a buyers market, house flipping shows were all the rage, and people bought more house then they could afford, so yea the mortgage companies have a good portion of the blame but so dose the person that signed the papers... Keep in mind I not included the people that were lied to or hoodwinked.

About five years ago when we bought our first house, they did extensive credit reports , income to debt ration analysis, and we were turned down once because of something on my report in error. Then when we got the loan the amount we were allowed was well beyond what we could even hope to afford in monthly payments.To break it down, we found a nice little house for like 75K that was well under what we could afford monthly payments even if one of us lost a job, but the Realtor saw we were approved for over 135K and would show use these huge houses that was close to the maxim amount we could take, I have to admit we were tempted but in the end we sat down and looked at the bottom dollar... When we sold the house the deal almost fell through because the buyer lost his job, but found one like two days later and the mortgage company only needed him to be at the job two weeks so we just pushed back the closing for that for two weeks... I heard that and just shook my head...