Buddy got this from Dawn Pettengill some other probably did also:
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Sorry for the delay in getting this to you! The legislative email was down off and on all weekend and is up now and I'm taking this as my opportunity!
Remember the Rubik's Cube? As we go to the different communities and talk to our constituents about their priorities and concerns, each concern puts a Rubik's cube up in our brains and we start working to solve it. Try this, no that doesn't work...move it this way, no that doesn't work either, okay how about this? You can imagine the scope and number of cubes up there, but luckily our brains are made to be able to juggle and in this case work to solve many things at once.
Here's an example: For several years, I have been contacted by a number of families in our district about their children not being able to hunt their own property. One is even a Century Farm. The children are part owners of their farms, but have moved out of state. During harvest, the children come home on weekends to help and would also like to hunt. It IS their property too, but because there is a limit on non-resident landowners anysex tags set by the Legislature, they can't. "This is like having a timeshare on a beach front property in Florida, but you can't use the beach." - Sen. Kapucian's line. How true!
Each General Assembly, I have submitted and tried to work a bill on their behalf. Each time, I work the Rubik's Cube in a little different way to get it to go through and have had no luck. Last year, we required the DNR to do a deer study on the herd and the economic impacts to the state and local economies. Between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Study and the DNR's Deer Study, I found a couple of new solutions to my constituent's requests.
Facts about the Non-Resident Landowners: They own 21% of Iowa's farmland. Their investment into our state is 24 billion dollars. They pay property taxes, invest over 2 billion in equipment, supplies and labor. Plus, they lease to many young farmers giving them an opportunity. Many are from Iowa, but for whatever reason, have moved to another state. They tried to purchase almost 12,000 anysex tags last year at $545.00 each. The cap is at 6000 (2.5%) and set by the Legislature. The DNR refunded almost 3 million dollars for because of the cap. 98% of the time, they hunt their own property. And when they come to our state, they spend an average of $695.00 each visit.
Facts about the Anysex Licenses: We sold 227,000 to Residents. 40% were urban hunters, 60% rural. Total licenses sold 233,000. Non-resident's had 6000 or 2.5% of the 233,000. The DNR sets the number of resident licenses and the Legislature sets the non-resident.
After getting those facts, I got a little sidetracked from my constituent's needs and saw money sitting on the table nobody was picking up. An untapped market, if you will. Supply is not meeting the demand. No fee increases, no tax increases, people wanting to buy something we have, but aren't selling. With the budget situation we are in, an extra $3.3 million into our coffers and an extra $4.2 into the local economies looks pretty good. So I put an amendment on the DNR Omnibus bill to increase the Non-Resident Landowners Anysex Deer Tags from 6,000 to 12,000. It seemed like a win/win to me. We have so much property damage from deer. All the things we are throwing under the bus because we don't have the money, I thought $3.3 million from 6,000 deer, who would probably jump under the bus without our help, was good and had a chance of getting it through for my constituents.
I talked to my caucus and have received many calls and emails about the amendment. At the end of the day, I don't know if it will go through or not. Another Representative gave me the idea of a resident transferring a tag to a non-resident family member, which does solve my constituent's problem, so I had that drafted and filed. No money to it, but it does solve the problem. Sometimes you can take your eyes off of the thing you're trying to do and attempt to solve several of those Rubik's cubes at once. We will see what happens with it. Today, the bill number changed again, third time. And I had to get the bill drafters working on amendments to the new number...if you aren't watching, you can get bamboozled by the "Moving Walnut" game too.
The last Legislative coffee was this past weekend. We had a good turnout. In April sometime, Sen. Kapucian and I will have post-session forums. Thank you to all who gave us their facilities to have a coffee, the attendees who have given their feedback and to Senator Kapucian for being there. It takes all of us to have a good government. Your participation is key!
Also, many thanks to Faith Baptist Church in Vinton for their "Friends Day" on Sunday. Senator Grassley even made it! We had a wonderful time.
Enjoy the nice weather!
Dawn
