LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Nebraska cities that want to upgrade roads, build swimming pools and pay their rising employee costs are preparing for a legislative fight this session with state lawmakers who want to restrict their power to tax.
Leaders in many cities, including Lincoln, Kearney and Omaha, want the Legislature to give them authority to raise the sales tax with voter approval, but Gov. Dave Heineman and many lawmakers remain opposed.
Supporters say cities should have the power to seek voter approval of tax increases, but opponents say the need to restrain government spending take precedence over calls for local control.
Don Wesely, a former state lawmaker who now lobbies for Lincoln and Omaha, says the effort to impose state authority over cities marks a change in Nebraska’s historic support for local control.

SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) – Police in Scottsbluff say they have identified a man who may have been shot in an apparent robbery but that the man remains missing.
Officers responded to a report of gunshots at a Scottsbluff home early Friday morning.
Police Capt. Brian Wasson says the victim has been identified as 26-year-old Francisco Camacho, who Wasson says fled on foot after the disturbance.
Wasson says it’s unknown if Camacho was shot. His condition and whereabouts also are unknown but police say they believe he is still in Scottsbluff.
Wasson says four people were in a garage at the home when a witness said two armed men wearing masks entered the garage but there was no evidence of gunshots in the garage.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Nebraska’s nonpartisan, one-house Legislature has turned 75.
Lawmakers honored the anniversary Friday as a hallmark achievement of the late U.S. Sen. George W. Norris, who campaigned for an end to the state’s traditional two-house, partisan Legislature.
Voters approved a constitutional amendment to adopt a Unicameral system in 1934. Its first members convened on Jan. 5, 1937.
Supporters of the system argued that a one-house Legislature would be cheaper, more efficient, and make it impossible for lawmakers to hide their actions in conference committees. Critics worried that the system would concentrate too much power in the hands of too few lawmakers.
Nebraska is the only U.S. state with a one-house Legislature, although Guam and the Virgin Islands also use the governing system.