Gomers -- What's going wrong

MORE VOTER APATHY: We're tired of again seeing such low voter turnout in local government elections, but ignoring the trend surely won't help reverse it. So we'll point out, for example, that in Cedar Rapids, where there were five contested seats for City Council, including mayor, and the well-publicized sales tax proposal on Tuesday's ballot, the turnout was 22.3 percent of registered voters. In Coralville, with a bevy of candidates and a hot issue - city debt and spending policies - turnout reached its highest since at least 1979. But at just 24 percent, it was still on the paltry side. And in Marion and Hiawatha, where library levy increases were up for consideration, as well as the sales tax, just 21.5 and 20 percent of voters bothered. In Iowa City, the controversial 21-only bar ordinance was upheld solidly but with only 22.4 percent weighing in.

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PRESCHOOL VOID: Among Iowa's 34,000 youngsters ages 3 and 4 from low-income homes, 61 percent were not enrolled in a preschool in 2011, a national child well-being research group reported. One challenge is that Iowa's state-funded program mandates only 10 hours a week, which creates enrollment barriers for many low-income working families.

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