Column

These are emotional days for a lot of people in Idaho.

In one afternoon, a serial killer was sentenced to two life terms for murdering two young Idaho men, and two horrifying arrests were made for the murder of a little Boise boy.

When the news of Tuesday afternoon’s arrests in the murder of eight-year-old Robert Manwill of Boise hit the internet and airwaves, it was nothing Boiseans didn’t expect, but still very painful for not only the thousands of sorrowful volunteers who spent days searching for Robert, but his father, his extended family and thousands of others, including me.

That the prime suspects are Robert’s own mother and her boyfriend is sickening. Wednesday, both were charged with first-degree murder and the repeated violent torture of the little boy.

Call to Participate

Up to 50,000 people can join conference calls with Rep. Walt Minnick of Idaho’s First District. The first will be August 19 and the second August 31, both at 6:00 PM Pacific Time, 7:00 Mountain Time.

Minnick said because it isn’t possible to meet with people in every town or community to talk about health care, but “the telephone town hall is an easy and free way for my constituents to learn more and to tell me what they think.”

“I also hope to announce soon an event organized specifically to bring together representatives from seemingly divergent interests for a serious and substantive discussion to find Idaho’s ‘common ground’ on health care and how it is impacting our economy,” Minnick said. “I want to take back to my colleagues in Washington, D.C., a set of principles to bridge the current divides, a set of principles upon which the vast majority of Idahoans can agree.”

To join one of the telephone town halls, constituents should call one of Minnick’s offices to ask to be listed for the call. Find the numbers on Minnick's website.

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Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, Boise Mayor Dave Bieter Want Train Service Restored to the West

Is this train bound for Boise?

Under the boiling sun on the sizzling cement platform at the historic Boise Train Depot, U.S. Senator Mike Crapo and Boise Mayor Dave Bieter announced the probable return of Amtrak to Boise.

Speaking to a crowd which included lots of guys in railroad hats, the announcement from Crapo that “we’re working to reestablish the old Pioneer Route” brought sincere cheers, and they weren’t the staged kind often heard at these kind of events.

A preliminary analysis from J. L. Patterson Associates, a transportation engineering firm in California, should be ready this week, and “we expect a positive evaluation from the report,” said Crapo. [more]

Stimulus Money

Having once written that Boise’s Vista Boulevard, a main artery into the city from the interstate, was a “tasteless trail of trashiness,” I’m happy to hear that the Vista Interchange project broke ground this morning.

In a press release, Governor Otter said, “For thousands of people a day, the Vista Interchange is the Treasure Valley’s gateway to commerce. It provides a primary link from Idaho’s largest airport to our largest metropolitan area. It’s the first part of Idaho that many people see on the ground, so it plays an important role in our efforts to attract and retain quality employers who provide the kinds of careers our people need.”

Anybody who follows Idaho politics knows that Otter is a madly enthusiastic road-builder, and has spent a lot of political capital fighting for the money he thinks is needed. There is a backlog of road and bridge repair and new construction of over $240 million dollars in the state, and the past two legislative sessions have been mighty power struggles between the governor and the legislature to allocate money to address it. [more]

POLITICAL ADVICE FOR THE TIMES

We're all thinking about health care reform and if Congress can really come through for us on an issue that touches us all. At the same time, I suppose you're asking what this issue is doing on the outdoor page.

The answer is, I might have found a way for our the-end-justifies-the-means Congress to pass meaningful health care reform without hurting their NRA grade. [more]

Supreme Court nomination

Idaho Republican Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch each issued statements Monday saying they’ll vote against the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Each object to her stance on the Second Amendment and other topics.

Crapo: “Judge Sotomayor has distinguished herself throughout her career, serving as a strong role model for many as she has excelled in her chosen field. She has demonstrated one of the greatest things about America—the opportunity to become whatever you want with your God-given abilities. I enjoyed my meeting with her and found her to be a personable individual.

“However, after having studied her positions and taken careful consideration through the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings earlier this month, I have concluded that I cannot vote to confirm her to a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Supreme Court. Her testimony was evasive and lacked substance; in some circumstances, it was misleading and even contradictory to her own previous statements and writings.

“Most particularly, I found a number of her rulings and writings to be of great concern. First, she rejects that all Americans have an individual 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In the Maloney case, she wrote that the right to bear arms is in fact not a “fundamental” right. If confirmed, she may very well be on the Court to hear that very case, Maloney. Even the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Idaho, has ruled the opposite way in a similar case--that the 2nd Amendment is binding on the states. Should Judge Sotomayor’s position in Maloney be upheld by the Supreme Court, Idahoans would lose their 2nd Amendment protection against state gun control laws.

“Also troubling is that she has made statements acknowledging that her experience allows her to choose the facts she wants to see when determining a case, rather than applying the law. And she has repeatedly stated that U.S. judges may look to foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the United States to maintain our country’s standing in the world community. The U.S. Supreme Court has directly reviewed ten of Judge Sotomayor’s decisions, and eight of those have been reversed or vacated. Most recently, the Court reversed a decision noted in an unsigned and unpublished opinion without any analysis regarding Ricci v. DeStefano, commonly called the New Haven firefighters case. [more]

Ethics in Business and Government

Last week’s Boise summit of the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region organization’s leaders and members was a forum for presenting research and new ideas about energy, land and water, economic development and more. It was a serious endeavor with hundreds of impressive minds who contributed, but it fell short of success.

Something was missing.

PNWER has a noble purpose, which is to form and implement a collective vision about the future of our region, consistently update and educate its members on the changes and innovations that affect common issues, and organize working groups, keeping everybody on track. It’s an impressive coalition, and the conference was one of the best I’ve seen in producing tangible plans with accountability checks and ways to measure results.

But whether it was mindset or neglect, the energy innovations track of the PNWER conference was strangely weak on proclaiming a fundamental concept about saving the planet: a sense of urgency and the ethical responsibility to respond in human terms. It was missing the bedrock “we must do this to rescue the earth and our children” – a statement of moral imperative that should come before, and with, talk of money and profit.

It was also alarmingly devoid of serious discussion about conserving energy instead of producing more of it. [more]

The toxic waste problem

17,000 tons of mercury stored at the Idaho National Laboratory? Idaho Governor Butch Otter is flabbergasted.

“The first time I heard about it was when I read it in the newspaper,” Otter told Boise's KBOI radio this week. “I don’t know whether it is arrogance or ignorance at its worst.”

The INL is one of seven sites being considered for storage of up to 17,000 tons of mercury. Mercury exports will be banned in 2013, and the Department of Energy is required by law to have facilities ready to manage and store mercury by then.

But Otter said he would not let the federal government make Idaho its mercury dump. In a Thursday press release, Otter said he would do everything within his power to keep the U.S. Department of Energy from storing highly toxic elemental mercury at the INL.

"No one in our state government and no one in our congressional delegation was aware this was up," said Jon Hanian, Otter's spokesman, according to the Idaho Statesman.

To say that the governor is angry is no stretch, especially after he said, “If they want to put it in a desolate and useless place, they should put it on the Capitol grounds.”

Mercury exposure is extremely dangerous. A liquid metal, mercury can damage the central nervous system, endocrine system, kidneys and other organs, as well as the mouth, gums and teeth. Prolonged exposure can cause brain damage and death. Mercury and its compounds are particularly toxic to babies and pregnant women. The infamous poisonings in Minimata, Japan, in the 1950s and Iraq in the 1970s were from mercury, and hundreds of children born to exposed women afterward had serious physical and developmental defects. [more]

Idaho Politics column

The Democratic National Committee has never been known for its Western orientation - a frustration for Democrats across the west for years.

It’s been tough for Rocky Mountain voters to identify with candidates with heavy Eastern support like Sen. John Kerry. Despite his vacation home in Sun Valley, Kerry has the eastern prep-school persona alien to westerners, and looked silly in costume-hunting gear.

Democrats who have run campaigns in the west will tell you stories of trying to get the right kind of support from the DNC, whose staffers are in glass-fronted offices in the swamp called Washington, D.C.. Many of them have never spent enough time in the west to understand – never mind appreciate – western Dems.

That’s why the story that about 100 DNC members and western Democratic leaders will meet in Coeur d’Alene August 7-9 for the Democratic National Committee’s 2009 Western States Caucus Conference is encouraging to Idaho Dems. The meeting has never been held in Idaho before. [more]

the impact of budget cuts

An hour’s drive northwest of Boise, Idaho, the small agricultural town of Parma is just one of several farming communities which face “restructuring” of extension programs connected with their local universities.

The University of Idaho’s Parma Research and Extension Center along with two or three others in the state was scheduled to close this year because of $3.2 million in legislatively mandated budget cuts.

But Wednesday, the university announced jointly with Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter that it will delay any decision to close the Parma Research and Extension Center, to “take additional time to conduct a more thorough review of the Research and Extension centers statewide,”
said U of I President M. Duane Nellis. Nellis has been president just over a week.

The review will analyze the cost-benefit ratio, sustainability and the impact of the work done in the statewide extension and research operation.

Part of the job descriptions of two of Parma’s professional staffers explain some of what extension centers do:
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