Homers & Gomers

HOMERS: WHAT'S GOING RIGHT

BODY CAMERAS: Iowa City police soon will be equipped with body cameras, and the price tag was significantly smaller than expected.

Police Chief Sam Hargadine says the cameras will cost just under $42,000. He expects to outfit officers with the equipment within a few months.

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EPIPEN OK: Legislators unanimously voted to allow school personnel and volunteers to use epinephrine auto-injectors, or EpiPens, if they believe a student is having a severe allergic reaction. That common-sense change could save a child's life.

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MORNING PRAYER: Homer to Rep. Liz Bennett, D-Cedar Rapids, for inviting Deborah Maynard, a Unitarian Universalist and leader of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, to deliver the Statehouse's morning prayer. Bennett told The Gazette her intentions were to show the Statehouse is inclusive. 'Iowa is a very diverse state, and I'm glad that I could do something to make our Statehouse just a little bit more open and welcoming,” she said. So are we.

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GOMERS: WHAT'S GOING WRONG

NO VOTE: Voters narrowly rejected a bond issue that would have funded renovations of five College Community School District schools.

District officials say they'll take another look at construction plans and may return the question to voters next year.

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NO PRISON: Despite pleading guilty to bribing public officials, misbranding eggs and introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce, Peter DeCoster, who with his father, Austin 'Jack” DeCoster, owned Iowa egg company Quality Egg LLC, will ask to be sentenced to probation, not prison, for his part in a 2010 salmonella outbreak that made nearly 2,000 people sick.

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NO PROGRESS: Legislators remained gridlocked last week over school funding levels for 2015-16. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for school districts to finalize their budgets.

It is long past time for legislators to come to an agreement on this issue and find a way to adequately fund the state's schools.

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