[Vision2020] Fwd: NYTimes.com: Less Is More, but in Idaho, Not for Long

[Debbie Gray]

NATIONAL | February 9, 2007
 Statehouse Journal: Less Is More, but in Idaho, Not
 for Long
 By WILLIAM YARDLEY
 In a state that views government with suspicion,
 even the growth of government buildings causes
 conflict.
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/us/09statehouse.html?ex=1171602000&en=1c29b27cb3f6ef3c&ei=5070&emc=eta1
 
 
 
 Less Is More, but in Idaho, Not for Long
 By WILLIAM YARDLEY
 
 BOISE, Idaho, Feb. 2  When Gov. C. L. Otter took
 office last month and 
 immediately halted construction work on the state
 Capitol his objections 
 went beyond the $130 million price tag for the
 renovation and addition.
 
 My concern is also about the expansion of
 government, said Mr. Otter, a 
 Republican. When you have more space, bureaucracy
 doesnt like an empty 
 office. It creates a vacuum. It sucks people into
 it, and all of a sudden 
 youve got to have more people.
 
 The governor has since reached a deal with the
 Republican-controlled 
 Legislature to cut the project in half, allowing
 construction to go 
 forward, although not until the new individual
 offices for legislators are 
 removed from the blueprints.
 
 Yet if Mr. Otter won this round, he might well savor
 the moment because 
 Idahos government is growing whether or not
 government buildings grow with 
 it.
 
 In a conservative state that has long viewed
 government with suspicion, 
 that still means conflict. But even the governors
 fellow Republicans 
 concede that the momentum here shifted years ago
 from bait-and-bullet to 
 New West boutique. As with so many other
 decreasingly rugged places in the 
 inland West, there is more of everybody in Idaho
 now: techies, Democrats, 
 immigrants, environmentalists. Ten thousand people
 showed up at Boise 
 State University last month to hear Al Gore talk
 about global warming. Ten 
 thousand people. To hear Al Gore. In Idaho.
 
 The states population, almost 1.5 million, is up
 nearly 50 percent since 
 1990 and some projections show it gaining another 50
 percent or more by 
 2020.
 
 While the growth has brought a sophisticated new
 economy, it has also 
 brought demands for more spending on education and
 transportation and 
 concerns about high taxes, too much development and
 a trampled 
 environment.
 
 And a ton more government.
 
 In 1991, the state budget was $900 million. This
 year it is $2.6 billion. 
 In 1985, there were 11,876 state employees. In 2005,
 there were 17,528.
 
 In 1985, the number of pages of legislation passed
 was 759. Last year it 
 was 1,581.
 
 The public spaces where many of the issues are
 aired, however, are the 
 same small hearing rooms, some with a single row of
 chairs for the public, 
 where part-time lawmakers and a few interested
 stakeholders once wrangled 
 largely over matters of mining, farming and logging.
 
 Now, although the Legislature is still part-time,
 people squeeze into the 
 back of hearing rooms, huddle in doorways or crowd
 around speakers that 
 broadcast committee discussions out into the
 rotunda. (The volume dial on 
 the speaker outside one hearing room was turned all
 the way up to 10 this 
 week.)
 
 It was designed to not have very much public
 participation in the process, 
 Speaker of the House Lawerence E. Denney said of the
 Capitol.
 
 While there now are more citizens who follow the
 Legislature, more people 
 are paid to participate as well. About 75 lobbyists
 were members of the 
 Idaho Legislative Advisors when Jan Eyth first
 started serving coffee and 
 snacks in the groups tiny lounge on the Capitols
 fourth floor in 1985. 
 Now, Ms. Eyth said, there are more than 150 members,
 and there are more 
 than 300 registered lobbyists in the state.
 
 Still, some say, interpret this change carefully.
 
 You know what lobbyists are? said Russell
 Westerberg, a lobbyist from Soda 
 Springs who came to Boise as a state representative
 in 1975. Theyre the 
 people that the people have to pay to protect them
 from the people that 
 they elected. He added, Its still Idaho; the
 government that governs 
 least, governs best.
 
 The Capitol, in which a light-filled rotunda is
 lined with bright marble, 
 once housed the Legislature, the governors office,
 the Supreme Court and 
 even a mineral laboratory. Now, some key offices,
 including parts of the 
 secretary of states office, are hidden in windowless
 corners of the 
 basement or they have moved out.
 
 The state spends $13 million a year renting about
 900,000 square feet of 
 private office space.
 
 All of that eventually prevailed upon Mr. Otter, to
 a degree. Under the 
 compromise with the Legislature, which had approved
 the expansion a year 
 ago, new underground wings will be reduced in size
 and many new offices 
 will be cut. Larger hearing rooms will be built,
 however, and renovations 
 at the Capitol will go forward.
 
 Still, neither side claims to be happy with the
 deal, and no one is 
 certain whether much money will be saved. The
 commission overseeing the 
 project has asked to see a revised budget before
 moving forward. That 
 could take weeks.
 
 In the meantime, as the Legislature debates lowering
 grocery taxes, 
 restricting elk ranching and building a new prison,
 it also is preparing 
 to move out of the Capitol.
 
 The Legislature, which had planned to hold its 2008
 and 2009 sessions in 
 temporary quarters in two aging buildings, including
 the former Ada County 
 Courthouse, now probably will be there through the
 2010 session because of 
 the delays in construction.
 
 The governor, whose office on the second floor of
 the Capitol has one of 
 the few fireplaces in the building, says the state
 should renovate the 
 older buildings and use them permanently for
 offices. Under the 
 compromise, he agreed to move some of his staff out
 of the Capitol.
 
 Mr. Otter, a former three-term congressman, took few
 specific stands in 
 his campaign for governor last fall, but he did run
 commercials saying the 
 expansion project was wasteful. He said he would run
 government the 
 old-fashioned way, lean and smart. Back then, he
 said he would rather 
 spend the expansion money, more than $40 million of
 the overall amount, on 
 education and other needs.
 
 In an interview in his office on Friday, he popped
 up from his chair to 
 retrieve photographs of a schoolyard cluttered with
 temporary classrooms. 
 Then he showed a picture of the state Capitol in
 Texas, whose underground 
 expansion wings were a model for the Idaho plan.
 
 This is where they want kids to spend nine months,
 Mr. Otter said. This is 
 where they want to spend three months.
 
 Senator Robert L. Geddes, who is the president pro
 tem and one of the 
 leaders of the expansion project, conceded that
 legislators could only put 
 up so much of a fight, even in a changing state.
 
 The vision of a grandiose Taj Mahal being built for
 the comfort of me, Mr. 
 Geddes said, that doesnt sit real well in my
 conservative district.




 
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