Transportation Policy

The proposed streetcar in downtown Boise has generated a lot of comment and controversy. But even with all the news coverage and discussion there still seem to be a number of questions. I try to get to the most important ones in a series of trolley FAQs:

Just where exactly is Boise getting the $60 million to pay for this thing?
Earlier this year President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) into law. As part of that Act, the U.S. Department of Transportation is making $1.5 billion available to state and local governments through the TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Discretionary Grants Program. TIGER grants can be used for most any kind of transportation related project, but it must also achieve certain outcomes such as increasing livability, sustainability, economic competitiveness, and job creation. Grants will be announced as soon as possible after September 15, 2009, but not later than February 17, 2010.

If the City of Boise gets the grant those funds will partially cover the start-up costs. To generate the remaining monies needed they are considering the establishment of an LID or Local Improvement District. Under the LID, the City would levy an additional tax on businesses along the streetcar route. There is still no consensus among business owners as to whether there is support for the creation of an LID, but Idaho state law 50-2601 allows Idaho municipalities to create LIDs (or BIDs - Business Improvement Districts) with a simple majority vote of the Council. The Mayor and Council will then have to cobble together funds from the City’s general fund and CCDC to pay for ongoing operations. 

Obituary

The respected theologian, author, and minister the Reverend Forrest Church has died of the cancer he fought for three years. He was 61.

Forrest was the grandson of Idaho Governor Chase A. Clark and son of the late Senator Frank Church and his widow, Boise resident Bethine Church. Longtime minister of the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City, Church is survived by his mother, his wife Carolyn Buck Luce, his brother Chase, and his children: Frank, Nina, Jacob and Nathan.

Family friend and spokesman, Boise attorney Dan Williams, told NewWest.Net that Church spent his last days in the hospital, but there were no treatments left to try. His family knew he was ending his days and were prepared. Williams also said that memorial services in New York and Boise are in the planning stages.

Forrest Church earned his Ph.D. in early church history from Harvard University in 1978, and was hired by All Souls the same year, when he was twenty-nine years old. He was minister at All Souls until his death.

His friend, NBC newsman and former Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw told the New York Times, “Forrest Church made all of our lives so much richer with his friendship, his faith and his optimism. He was a leading citizen in the world of all of God’s children.”

Opinion: Technology

The big news event out of Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter’s Innovation Summit today at Boise State University was the announcement of a $5 million grant to Micron to help it develop light-emitting diode (LED) technology. While the money was awarded by the state, it comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), commonly referred to as the federal stimulus package.

Otter, as well as Scott DeBoer, Micron’s Vice President of Process Research and Development, praised the announcement as supporting green technology, as well as providing new jobs for Idahoans.

“Through our 30-year history, the success of Micron and the state of Idaho have been closely tied,” DeBoer said.

That’s the problem.

Sustainability Blog

According to his bio, “Ed Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, where he also serves as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He studies the economics of cities, and has written scores of urban issues, including the growth of cities, segregation, crime, and housing markets. He has been particularly interested in the role that geographic proximity can play in creating knowledge and innovation. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1992 and has been at Harvard since then.” An obviously brilliant and esteemed urban economist, you’ll see why I find his article “Put Transit Where the People Are” so bizarre.

Column

“I will not apologize for making an innocent comment,” said Rex Rammell, Republican candidate for governor of Idaho.

Eastern Idaho veterinarian Rammell held a press conference in Boise this morning at which he defiantly refused to apologize for his remark about “Obama tags.”

Rammell began by reading a press release out loud in which he denounced the Republican leaders who admonished him. He thinks they are overreacting, a theme which stayed with him to the end of the event.  “Instead of tearing at my flesh like the political wolves that you are, over something as insignificant as a response to a jest taken out of context, why aren’t you doing something to make Idaho a better place to live?”

Rammell insisted that because his remark was “taken out of context” that he shouldn’t be condemned.

Local TV reporter: “So you’re not going to apologize?”

Rammell: “No.”

Judge could halt scheduled wolf hunt

Wolf hunters and conservationists are waiting Tuesday morning for a decision from U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula on whether the scheduled opening day for hunting wolves can proceed.  Here is some recommended reading:

Monday’s latest from NewWest.Net’s Amy Linn is a full report on the lawsuit by 13 groups in a coalition represented by Earthjustice. Linn was in the courtroom yesterday and it’s a fascinating you-are-there piece on this controversial issue.

“Perhaps the most dramatic moment in the courtroom came when Earthjustice attorney Honnold said reintroduction won’t be a success until 3,000 to 5,000 wolves are in the northern Rockies—up to three times more wolves than today’s numbers. The statement drew audible gasps from the pro-hunt contingent.”

Also yesterday, the Spokane Spokesman-Review’s Betsy Russell had three short, informative pieces. Excerpts and links:

Gov. Otter calls statement reckless and inflammatory

The day after calls to the Idaho congressional delegation from columnists, bloggers, and constituents to respond to Rex Rammell’s statement about buying an “Obama tag” during a speech about wolf hunting tags, they have.

Rammell is seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2010.

Governor Butch Otter said, “Reckless and inflammatory statements like these gravely damage confidence in the political process and the good citizens who serve the public. As Governor, as an Idaho Republican and as a citizen of our state, I reject and condemn this kind of rhetoric. There is no place for it in Idaho.”

“Rex Rammell’s comments are in very poor taste and should not have been said,” said Crapo. “Remarks like these should not even be made jokingly. We are engaged in a critical national debate over many major issues facing our country today. Remarks like these are not only unhelpful in that debate, but they undermine it. He should apologize for those remarks and for the perception they may have created.”

Rex Rammell says he was joking

UPDATE, Friday Aug. 28, 9:45 AM: Rammell released this: “Due to the large amount of press concerning his statement Dr. Rammell would like to clarify his comment: ‘Anyone who understands the law, knows I was just joking, because Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue hunting tags in Washington D.C.’”

You’ve probably heard that Jared Hopkins, reporter from the Twin Falls Times-News, reported in another one of his scoop-them-all stories that at a Republican fundraiser Wednesday in Twin Falls, Idaho Republican candidate for governor Rex Rammell gave a speech.

Hopkins wrote, “After an audience member shouted a question about ‘Obama tags’ during a discussion on wolves, Rammell responded, ‘The Obama tags? We’d buy some of those.’”

Rammell told Hopkins it was a joke.

Let’s start with some basics. What would Rammell’s mother say? Mine would have said, “Threatening the President is a felony, and you will never say anything like that again. Clear?”

What would Rammell’s father say? Mine would have said, “I expect you to take this matter seriously. And if you ever hear anyone make a statement threatening the President, you will loudly object and then call the police.”

Dad meant the law enforcement experience to make an impression on the person who threatened the President and thought it was funny, not to have the threatener arrested.

Editorial/Opinion

A crowd of about two hundred frustrated, anti-health care reform, anti-President Obama Idaho citizens heated up a hotel ballroom in Boise Saturday night.

They were there to give Rep. Walt Minnick, D-CD1, a piece of their minds.

Unlike town halls held in other states, this crowd stayed reasonably in order, although there were waves of audience-wide booing and remonstration. But they listened to a calm Minnick even when they disagreed with him, which was often. When he didn’t give an answer they wanted to hear, Minnick forged ahead and seemed unruffled by negative reactions.

“With everything that is going on around us, the tyranny that is going on around us, my question is what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about our constitutional rights?” asked T.J Lacey, who leads a group called the 9-12 Project. 

Minnick answered that he promised to protect those rights when he was sworn in. Not satisfied, the crowd broke in with questions challenging him on the constitutionality of the health care bill.

Political Commentary: Joan McCarter

In the ongoing red state/blue state, small state/big state public opinion tussle, the small states have been on the losing end lately, with small state Senators having huge influence on two major pieces of legislation, influence that is either significantly weakening, and even threatening to kill, those bills. That leaves plenty of people wondering how it is that a handful of senators who represent a tiny fraction of the nation’s population get to decide for all of us. But I think the real question needs to be whether that tiny fraction of the nation’s population is really being represented, and if not, what are they going to do about it.