OUR VIEW: Heavenly pennies: Storm has silver side

• OUR VIEW

OUR VIEW

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Pennies from Heaven. That’s one way to describe the May 5 hail storm that hit Mitchell.

The Daily Republic recently reported that the storm caused a serious uptick in revenue at the city landfill. In that Aug. 24 news report, we told readers that the extra business created by companies dumping damaged shingles has increased landfill revenue by at least 50 percent since the first of the year. Because of that windfall, city officials say a planned landfill rate increase probably will be delayed a year.

Now, we have heard Mayor Ken Tracy say the hail storm is helping reinvigorate the city’s sales tax coffers. During a recent visit to the Mitchell Rotary Club, the mayor said the city expects good news when the next quarterly tax report is issued.

He said the city has been in good shape, financially speaking, and specifically regarding sales-tax revenue. He said the last sales-tax report showed about a 7 percent increase year-over-year, and he also said he anticipates another good quarterly report in the near future.

“(The hail storm) caused a lot of damage and as a result there is a great deal of roofing and siding taking place that is generating tax dollars, as well as all of the workers staying in town, meals and so on,” he said.

Although the mayor said he remains a bit cautious because of the drought, “we are anticipating another good quarter.”

By no means would we wish a big hail storm on anyone, or at any time. But after the storm hit May 5, there wasn’t much to do but clean up the mess, paste a smile on the face and move forward.

We know some businesses made a killing after the storm; likewise, we’re sure some folks took a big financial hit.

We saw the storm’s nasty side. We saw the broken windows, ruined roofs, damaged trees and millions of dollars in wrecked cars and property. There’s nothing we can do about that. We can only squeeze a bit of lemonade from the lemon-sized stones that pelted our fair town that morning.

So to hear that the hail storm actually has a bright side for the city is good news. And if a few pennies — or silver dollars or $100 bills or thousands more in new revenue for the city — happen to have dropped from Heaven that day, then so be it.

We’ll take it.

Tags: opinion, updates, editorials, weather, storm, taxes, budget