Homers

FUNDING CLEARED: Congressional leaders showed last week that they can compromise, when they want to, agreeing on legislation to provide about $17 billion to help ease long waiting lines at VA medical centers.

Veterans deserve timely, quality medical care - as they were promised. So, too, do taxpayers deserve representatives who put the people's work before partisan posturing.

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SOLAR POWER: The state's solar energy industry reached a new level last week with the opening Farmers Electric Cooperative's new array in Kalona. The array's 2,900 solar panels - the state's largest - will generate of more than 1 million kilowatt-hours each year while reducing transmission losses and keeping more money in our area.

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NEW CHIEF: Even though she loved her job and always felt welcome, when Deb Krebill started out as a firefighter for the Marion Fire Department two decades ago, she never thought she'd advance to lead the department. 'You just assumed that a woman would not be fire chief,” she told The Gazette last week. Now, the newly appointed fire chief joins a small group of female chiefs in the country.