Lincoln Nebraska (Omaha, Superior: fit in, city hall, renter)

[dusesean1986]

University of Nebraska football fans are hardcore. Let me tell you a funny story: Back in '04 or '05 Nebraska was scheduled to play Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, home of Notre Dame. Most season home games for any team usually accomodate less than 10,000 opposing fans. When the game began, something was different. The Nebraska fans had occupied 1/3 of the stadium, they sold 30,000 tickets to the Nebraska faithful. The fans begin to chant "Nebraska Home Game" before the game started. lol. I live in Southern California and when Nebraska came out to play SC, some of their fans didn't even have tickets who made the trip from the Lincoln area to Southern California. Unfortunately, when they lost this game, SC fans had their own chant for Nebraska fans, "start your tractors." Nebraska fans are FAITHFUL!

[Dennis P]

Yep, those Nebraskans really love their college football! As I said in another post, football is the thing that brings together both urban and rural Nebraskans alike.

[dusesean1986]

Thanks Dennis, geez the whole Nebraska Forum responsivenss is slower than a turtle. (sp.) good joke or not. LOL

[Dennis P]

Originally Posted by dusesean1986

Thanks Dennis, geez the whole Nebraska Forum responsivenss is slower than a turtle. (sp.) good joke or not. LOL

Well, you have to understand that life moves at a slower pace over there than it does here in sunny (and warm ) Southern California!

[gzo13]

Are the public K-12 schools any good in Lincoln, NE??????????

[MattDen]

They should be good quality schools considering the fact that in Colorado some property tax rates for schools are less then 200 dollars for every 100,000 dollars in market value and in Lincoln they more then 1,250 dollars for every 100,000 dollars

Lincoln prides itself on good schools, but that means that the only people I see living here who dont go to UNL are families. Thus, while the schools maybe good the businesses are going out of business left and right and "for-sale" and "for-rent" signs on homes and apartments are so widespread its not uncommon to see three for sale signs in a row due to the Very high property taxes that have caused people to try to get what little they can for their homes and get out of high-property tax loving Nebraska.

The infrastructure as far roads is also terrible in Lincoln, they couldnt even afford a traffic engineer position for a city of 240,000 people+

Since Lincoln spends in incredible amount on schools and so much proprerty tax goes for them, this city is in major decline infrastructure wise. The roads and sidewalks full of the potholes, the city-owned facilities are in very bad shape and seem to have never been remodeled. They have hardly any resources for redevolop, so the downtown and inner-neighborhoods have major blight.

[gzo13]

This is not the first time I heard of Lincoln's poor infrastructure when it comes to road maintenance. But I heard that Lincoln schools are among the best in the state.

So I take it that some people think that property taxes are too high to begin with? I have that same complaint about Madison, Wisconsin. But the school district here in Madison is in sharp decline due to the fact that the state has set a revenue cap on school districts. Districts cannot raise the property tax at will in order to get money for schools. There's a cap of about 2.5% of a raise per year. I guess we can't continue to fund schools by using property taxes. Something else must be found.

I also read that registering your car in Nebraska can cost up to $700 for two years. Is this true? Crazy.

[MattDen]

Originally Posted by gzo13

This is not the first time I heard of Lincoln's poor infrastructure when it comes to road maintenance. But I heard that Lincoln schools are among the best in the state.

So I take it that some people think that property taxes are too high to begin with? I have that same complaint about Madison, Wisconsin. But the school district here in Madison is in sharp decline due to the fact that the state has set a revenue cap on school districts. Districts cannot raise the property tax at will in order to get money for schools. There's a cap of about 2.5% of a raise per year. I guess we can't continue to fund schools by using property taxes. Something else must be found.

I also read that registering your car in Nebraska can cost up to $700 for two years. Is this true? Crazy.

Nebraskan's dont think that their property taxes are high, they seem to enjoy paying them. I dont understand why no outrage because this state borders South Dakota and Wyoming which are incredibly low tax states. Colorado's state sales tax is 2.9% as opposed to Nebraska's state sales tax at 5.5%. Property tax is 75% lower in Colorado also.

I dont think spending tons and tons of money on public schools like they do in Lincoln when the economy is very shaky and going down-hill is good.

Nebraska has a very high birthrate, so college funding and infrastructure funding is falling behind inflation because the need for K-12 funding is so high.

Lincoln city government is also doing all they can to become a one niche city. The desire for the city economic devolopment is to be a city that caters to families primarily thats why they spend so much on schools is because the people running the city believe that if they spend, spend, spend on schools that businesses will come here because of that. Never mind the fact that Lincoln's infrastructure is more typical of a city of 25,000 people then of nearly 250,000 people. The problem with Lincoln wanting to a very family friendly city is that the wages are 20% or so below the national average per job and most places that market themselves as wanting to be mecca's for large families are in outlying suburbs of prosperous cities.

Another thing about Lincoln is its a very provincial city, the city government seems to have a disdain with tax incentives and is very conservative about using business incentives and economic devolopment incentives to get business to come here. The powers that be in Lincoln truely believe that they are such a great city they dont have to compete.

[ehenningsen]

Wow, I live in Nebraska and I dont remember the heat being that bad, last year we had some heat like that, but thats like once in 10 year type of thing, normally we get like 15-20 days of 90+ and like 0-2 days of 100+ The average rainfall in eastern nebraska is just under 30 inches, and she is right on the winter.

[ehenningsen]

MattDen you have yet to provide any information that not only makes sense but is anywhere near accurate, oh my gosh i love reading your responses, lol
MattDen you are just making yourself more miserable by making this stuff up... if you really dont like it here, I would suggest transferring to a school back in Colorado... and i mean that in a friendly way, cause im a friendly guy :-)