Homers: What's going right

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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EXPAND BUY-LOCAL: The Cedar Rapids Procurement Committee appears ready to recommend that the city expand its buy-local program to include all of Linn County. Makes sense. The City Council has been giving city businesses preference on some city purchases of services and goods. However, the policy excludes metro and county businesses that long have worked in Cedar Rapids. Fix that.

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DADS STEP UP: Cheers to Isaiah Jones and Maurice Jones. The two Cedar Rapids fathers are worried about violence and gangs in their Wellington Heights neighborhood. They don't want to see it escalate to the level they saw in Chicago before moving here. So, they recently formed a chapter of Men Against Destruction, Defending Against Drugs and Social Disorder (MAD DADS). They want to provide positive male influences for youngsters without a father figure, as well as plan activities that unite the community. Efforts like this also help improve safety instead of relying only on police.

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BIG BUCKS: Cornell College in Mount Vernon raised $105.8 million in its latest fundraising campaign - the highest-ever amount for a national liberal arts college in Iowa.