When FFP reporter Natalia Alamdari picked up the phone the other day and called Paul Murrell, mayor of the Panhandle town of Mitchell, the conversation veered in a few fascinating ways.
Murrell told her that he had no idea that the town’s police chief, Dominick Peterson, had recently been slapped with a protection order by a judge after allegedly repeatedly sending lewd messages and photos to a 24-year-old woman in Gering, driving repeatedly by her home and telling her he knew when her boyfriend wasn’t there.
That’s interesting in and of itself — the city had already been subpoenaed for records in the case. How come the mayor didn’t know?
But then Natalia, being the dogged reporter that she is, asked Mitchell’s mayor if Peterson’s behavior was appropriate for a police chief.
Murrell responded with a burst of blunt honesty.
“That’s not appropriate for anybody, I would think,” he replied.
Indeed.
Read Natalia’s story on the Nebraska police chief who is still on the job after allegedly terrorizing a 24-year-old woman.
About that giant check …: The lead photo on this story, by FFP reporter Jeremy Turley, tells a tale of a many words about our current political moment.
It’s a photo from last year. A photo of both Nebraska U.S. senators and Rep. Don Bacon presenting one of those cartoonishly large checks, made out for exactly $1,347,078.00 to the city of Wahoo to replace miles of century-old, leak-prone natural gas pipes.
But that giant check was part of the Biden infrastructure bill, and when Donald Trump retook office, he ordered agencies to freeze funding on the infrastructure projects like the one in Wahoo and more than a dozen others across Nebraska.
Now, the city of Wahoo may indeed gets its money to replace its gas pipes. But now city officials say they won’t bank on it until that cartoonishly large check is actually deposited in their bank account.
Turley with a story on the uncertainty and chaos swirling around these Nebraska projects.
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Here’s what we’re into this week: News from around Nebraska
Every week we like to share great Nebraska journalism, no matter who made it. Here’s what caught our eye this week:
- The annual effort to change Nebraska back to a “winner-take-all” state in presidential elections has fallen just short yet again.
The so-called Blue Dot — which I’m always annoyingly pointing out should accurately be called the Purple Dot, since it’s a tossup district — lives to see another day. Fred Knapp of Nebraska Public Media — owner of the Knappsack, the hippest non-FFP piece of journalism merch that has ever existed — with the story. - Silicon Prairie News, our sister publication, focuses on tech, entrepreneur and business news across Nebraska. They have been doing good work, and I wanted to highlight a couple of their newest stories I found fascinating.
A global manufacturer based in little Deshler, Nebraska, is dumping millions into robotic assembly equipment because company leaders see it as the future of how center pivots will be built. - And Alpaca, an ed-tech startup that is trying to help teachers, received $1.8 million in seed funding. Both stories by SPN reporter Ben Goeser.
- A political poll, paid for by a potential political campaign, that comes out roughly 19 months before the election is generally not worth the virtual paper on which it is printed. But it is at least mildly interesting that former U.S. Senate candidate and likely future U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn released a poll this week showing he’s allegedly down 1 in a hypothetical 2026 matchup with Sen. Pete Ricketts. Story by Andrew Wegley of the Lincoln Journal Star. (May need a subscription to read.)
- It’s crummy time to be a Nebraska soybean farmer. Why? Because China is a giant trading partner. The trade war between the Trump administration and Chinese leaders is undoubtedly going to affect soybean prices and sales.
Here’s a story about that from the New York Times.
And lest you think I have gone all East Coast on you, here’s a story about the same subject from Steve White of Kearney’s NTV. - The head of the Lincoln Police Department’s Special Victims Unit has been removed from his command, reports Lori Pilger at the Lincoln Journal Star. (May need a subscription to read.)
The development comes after some revealing reporting on the department by Lauryn Higgins for The Midwest Newsroom. - Managing editor Ryan Hoffman sent this story to me, suggesting I put it in the newsletter. It has no particular connection to Nebraska, other than that Colorado is right next to Nebraska. But it does have a connection to cattle — specifically, a modern-day cattle rustling mystery. A helluva tale here, and some incredible photos, too.
