[Vision2020] Strapped Family Seeks Stimulus Slice

[Tom Hansen]

Refusing to accept Stimulus funds offered to the state of Idaho may send a 
message of independence to Wahington DC.  But it will send a a much more 
painful message of apathy to many of Idaho's residents.

Courtesy of today's (March 6, 2009) Spokesman Review.

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Strapped family seeks stimulus slice

BOISE – Sitting in her wheelchair in her three-bedroom, one-bath 1915 home 
in south-central Idaho, Melody Russell admits she’s not a bank. She’s not 
a carmaker or an insurance firm or a wind turbine. Even so, the 48-year-
old mother of five with multiple sclerosis and a husband with a 
transplanted liver and no colon would like a share of the $787 billion 
federal stimulus.

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The Russell family’s 2005 Christmas photo: Melody and husband Gary sit 
with their children Greg and Rebecca, in back, and, in front from left, 
Rachel, Hannah and Teresa.

http://tinyurl.com/bg2ppj

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After watching fat cats on Wall Street reap federal largesse in recent 
months of economic turmoil, Russell said she got to thinking: Why not 
regular folks like her?

So when Gov. Butch Otter last month announced he was taking ideas from all 
comers on how to divvy up the state’s chunk of the stimulus, estimated to 
be as much as $1 billion, she was ready. In a Feb. 18 letter, she asked 
Otter for help to pay off $34,000 in debt on two credit cards. She said 
the debt is due mostly to her family’s medical bills.

If there’s a little left over, Russell said, she might buy a new pair of 
shoes.

“Because I wear braces, my shoes are kind of big. I wear a size 9,” she 
said Thursday. “I personally thought that President Obama, instead of 
giving so much money to the banks and the car dealers, he needed to give 
more money to the regular person, so we could stimulate the economy.”

Her husband, Gary, has had two liver transplants at the Mayo Clinic in 
Minnesota, the result of a bile duct disease that also destroyed his colon.

Melody Russell, who works sometimes as a substitute teacher in Shoshone, 
Idaho, gets $761 a month in federal disability payments, after giving up 
the family ambulance business, Southern Idaho Medical Services, three 
years ago because she could no longer walk.

Her physician, Dr. Keith Davis, practices at Shoshone Family Medical 
Center in the former railroad town – and has seen Russell for 23 years.

Her multiple sclerosis limits her mobility; she can no longer 
drive. “She’s on medication through a neurologist,” Davis said. “She gets 
around with some restriction. She has a motorized cart she’s able to use 
to get around.”

Last month, Otter asked state agencies – and anybody else with a project 
they thought fit the stimulus bill – to submit plans by March 4. Now a 
team of advisers hopes to make a recommendation to the Republican governor 
by March 19, before Otter makes a final recommendation to the Legislature. 
In all, Idaho got 1,029 requests for money from the state’s share of the 
$787 billion federal stimulus, not including those from state agencies. 
Non-state agency requests totaled about $4.8 billion.

Jon Hanian, Otter’s press secretary, said it appears that some applicants 
decided to “shoot the moon.” “It’s obviously more than we’ve got to go 
around,” he said.

There’s a $48 million request bid from Canyon County for a new jail. Idaho 
Power Co., the state’s largest utility, wants about $11 million, for 
weatherization and home energy audits, among other things. One company, 
Idaho Wind Energy LLC, put in a bid for $640 million, to build three wind 
farms. Ada County, where Boise is located, wants nearly $260 million to 
expand its landfill. The list goes on for 23 pages: wildfire mitigation, 
wells and pump houses, even an equestrian center. Police in Mountain Home 
want $18,900 worth of stun guns.

The governor has appointed a committee, including three former governors 
and five former state budget directors, to review all the requests and 
make recommendations to him. “They’ll look at what’s permissible, what 
isn’t; what is in, potentially, the best interest of the state, and what 
isn’t,” Hanian said. “They’re going to weigh the pros and cons of this and 
try to provide some analysis.”

Wayne Hammon, Otter’s budget chief, is among those reviewing proposals, 
including Melody Russell’s $34,000 credit card debt plan. Hammon wouldn’t 
comment on individual requests, but said, “It’s clear just from a cursory 
read of them there are some that don’t meet the eligibility requirements.”

Maybe he’s talking about the Girl Scouts of Silver Sage Council Inc.’s 
request for $321,527, to offset “lower receipts.” Melody Russell, who 
hadn’t told her husband yet about asking for the money, figures Hammon is 
probably talking about hers, too.

Asked if she really expected to get anything, she answered, “To be honest, 
no.”

“But I can always wish and hope,” she said. “I mainly wanted the governor 
to know that there’s people here who that stimulus is not going to help at 
all. My 10-year-old was telling me the other day, her clothes were getting 
a little small.”

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A North Idaho wish list 
Requests from North Idaho:

•Coeur d’Alene School District: $40 million for school renovations and 
repairs.

•City of Coeur d’Alene: $205,620 for more police officers.

•Post Falls School District: $125,000 for energy-efficient window 
replacements.

•Sandpoint Airport: $11.8 million for runway, taxiway and hangar 
improvements. 

•Panida Theater, Sandpoint: $385,000 for interior renovations.

•City of Sagle: $1.3 million for a new fire station.

•City of Plummer: $340,000 for a new library.

•Shoshone County: $7.5 million for a new water treatment plant, new mains 
and water meters.

•Bonner County: $5.8 million for a new juvenile detention center.

•East Bonner Library District: $1.6 million for renovations.

•Boundary Community Hospital: $175,000 for a new health care education 
center. 

•Boundary County: $276,400 to replace roofs at four schools.
 
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Seeya at the Intolerista Wingding, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapsed Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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