Tim Bruning is a resident, farmer, and president of the Loess Hills Landowners and Operators Association. Hear his perspective.

Transcript: Mistakes of Public Landowners

As things have been in the recent past, public ownership has failed to take all things into account. For instance, they buy a piece of land, don't have the wherewithal or the money to take care of it properly, the way they would like to, but yet they'll go and buy another piece. In Monona county, for instance, they own, the state owns approximately 9000 acres half of which pays absolutely no taxes. There's no federal land ownership in Monona county. There is some local county land...they want to acquire the land but they don't look beyond the simple acquisition. There are a lot of costs, a lot of things to look at beyond just owning. You have to take care of it too.