[Vision2020] CHEERS & JEERS: 2010 IN REVIEW (Marty Trillhaase)

Tom Hansen thansen at moscow.com
Fri Dec 31 11:46:26 PST 2010


CHEERS & JEERS: 2010 IN REVIEW
By Marty Trillhaase of the Tribune

CHEERS: Lawrence Wasden

Want a profile in political courage? Idaho's attorney general is as good a
role model as you will find.

Wasden sued his fellow Republicans on the state Land Board. The membership
includes Gov. C. L. (Butch) Otter, schools Superintendent Tom Luna and
Secretary of State Ben Ysursa. And it's not the first time Wasden has put
his constitutional oath of office and professional ethics ahead of his
political interests.

At issue is the fate of Idaho's 521 cottage sites at Priest and Payette
lakes. Those sites sit on endowment lands, which means rents go toward
schools, colleges and state hospitals. Under the state constitution, the
land board is required to get the maximum return on those lands.

It's failed in that duty. If the state charged market-based rents, it
would be collecting at least another $3 million more. But land board
members have succumbed to the squeaky wheel syndrome - many of the cabin
site lessees are influential families.

Idaho's Supreme Court kicked Wasden's suit back to the trial court, where
a Boise judge agreed with Wasden's reading of the constitution. That put
on hold, for now, the land board's plan to impose new 10-year leases that
locked the state into below-market returns.

At the same time, the Land Board is moving toward selling these leases, a
move that gets the state out of business where it can't make money.

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JEERS: Lawerence Denney

You won't find an Idaho Speaker of the House who has demonstrated more
sheer political impotence than the Midvale Republican has in his handling
of the Phil Hart affair.

Hart, R-Athol, is the four-term Idaho House member who refuses to pay more
than $500,000 in incomes taxes, including $50,000 to the state. He also is
a timber thief, having taken enough trees off state endowment lands to
build a cabin, without permission or paying fully what he owes.

And what has Denney done about it?

He sat idly by and waited for two of Hart's colleagues - first Lewiston
Democrat John Rusche and later Priest Lake Republican Eric Anderson - to
call for an ethics probe. Any other speaker would have launched the ethics
investigation himself.

When the first ethics committee suggested, reasonably, that a tax scofflaw
was a bad fit for the House Revenue and Taxation Committee, Denney waited
weeks - and only after he had Hart's permission - to make the change.

And so far, Anderson has suffered more than Hart in the second review.
Denney yanked Anderson's vice-chairmanship of the State Affairs Committee
and denied him a seat on Judiciary - a panel where Hart sits.

There's a taint on the Idaho House. As much as Hart is responsible for
this blemish, Denney is to blame for not lifting it.

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CHEERS: Chris Gregoire

It's been such a grueling month for Washington's governor - a special
legislative session that pulled nearly $1 billion out of the budget and
preparations for a two-year budget that must slice more than $4 billion
more - that it's easy to forget the governor practically volunteered for
the job.

As Elena Kagan was proceeding toward confirmation as an associate justice
on the U.S. Supreme Court, attention focused on Gregoire to replace her as
the Obama administration's next solicitor general.

Gregoire had the credentials.

She's a lawyer at heart.

Gregoire served three terms as Washington's attorney general before her
election in 2004 as chief executive.

She had the ear of the Obama White House. Apparently, Gregoire was on the
short list.

But in August, Gregoire pre-empted the process, asking not to be
considered for the appointment.

She wanted to complete her term and guide the state through its budget
hole - which has grown by at least half again as much since then.

------------

JEERS: American Beverage Association

The group certainly got its money's worth, investing $17 million to pass
Washington's Initiative 1107, which got more than 60 percent of the vote
and rolled back taxes on pop, bottled water and candy.

The beverage association's interest was clear: It didn't like the tax on
pop. Considered it a lousy precedent. Feared it could lead other states to
follow suit, especially as concerns about childhood obesity mount. But
those weren't the arguments voters heard in the ubiquitous television ads
last fall.

The commercials hardly mentioned pop, come to think of it.

Instead, the Yes on 1107 focused on the candy tax and suggested that the
Legislature's tweaking of a court ruling on meat-processing taxes equaled
a new tax on groceries.

Such tactics are why Tacoma News Tribune writer Peter Callaghan said Yes
on 1107 was responsible for the "most deceptive, most cynical political
ads of the year."

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JEERS: Pat Childers

State representative from Cody, Wyo. It's been four months since U.S.
District Judge Donald Molloy restored federal Endangered Species Act
protection to wolves, ending state management - and hunting seasons - in
Idaho and Montana.

For that, you can thank Childers, a Republican and chairman of the Wyoming
House Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee.

He helped draft Wyoming's wolf management plan, which would have the
species shot on sight as a predator throughout much of the state.

As a result, the feds never signed off on that state's wolf management plan.

And after expressing concerns about the arrangement of state-managed
wolves in Idaho and Montana coupled with federal management of the species
in Wyoming, Molloy called it quits. He said two wolf management systems
within one Northern Rocky Mountain region was untenable. Wolves don't
recognize artificial political boundaries, he said.

------------

CHEERS: Lewiston voters

They who wisely refused to launch a recall of their city council just six
months after having elected the panel.

Represented by Citizens for Better Government, the folks who lost the 2009
city elections wanted to oust the candidates who did prevail - Mayor Kevin
Poole, Mayor Pro Tem Brad Cannon and Councilors Thyra Stevenson and Dennis
Ohrtman.

Falling about 1,000 signatures short of the 3,272 needed to force an
election, Citizens for Better Government didn't branch out beyond its
core.

Which means the broader electorate reached a reasonable conclusion: It's
time to move on.

------------

JEERS: Dianne Capps

Even in this era of limited attention spans, Capps was famous for a bit
last winter. Speaking at the Feb. 13 Tea Party meeting at the Asotin
County Fairgrounds, the Clarkston resident offered this line heard 'round
the world - courtesy of the Internet and the Huffington Post:

"What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd?" Capps asked,
referring to the "Lonesome Dove" character Jake Spoon. "What happened to
Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd? He got hung. And that's what I want
to do with Patty Murray."

Murray, a Democrat, this past election won re-election as Washington's
United States senator.

This flirtation with violence was a theme within some Tea Party circles.
Some members attended rallies carrying signs of President Obama as a Nazi.
Others wore T-shirts referring to the "tree of liberty" - as in
Jefferson's quote about refreshing the tree of liberty "from time to time
with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

But Capps took it over the line. Rather than apologize when she got
caught, Capps blamed the media for her predicament. Tea Party promoters
also excused it.

"We know the agenda and the direction of the general media," said Doug
Schurman of Clarkston, who organized the event. "We're not radical,
bomb-throwing crazies, unlike some people in our government."

------------

CHEERS: Megaload opponents

Linwood Laughy, his wife Karen Hendrickson and Peter Grubb. Sometimes all
it takes to hold big business and government accountable is the
involvement of a handful of people.

Until Laughy, Hendrickson and Grubb intervened, the matter of more than
200 megaloads hauling oil manufacturing equipment from the Port of
Lewiston up U.S. Highway 12 to Montana seemed cut and dried.

Idaho Transportation Department officials insisted the decision rested on
engineering, safety and traffic standards. No provisions were made for
environmental concerns or even public involvement.

Since then, Laughy, Hendrickson and Grubb have raised a battery of solid,
thought-provoking questions and put the megaload issue through its paces -
at the district court, the Idaho Supreme Court and the administrative
level.

If nothing else, they've shown the megaload permitting process is more
nuanced than ITD officials, ConocoPhillips or ExxonMobil suggested.

------------

JEERS: Idaho politicians

Idaho Gov. C. L. (Butch) Otter and the state's congressional delegation -
Republican Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, Democratic Congressman Walt
Minnick and Republican Congressman Mike Simpson.

In separate letters - Otter in January 2009, the delegation in February of
that year - Idaho's top elected officials lined up behind the megaload
project.

Otter wrote that he was "pleased" that ExxonMobil wanted to bring its
shipments up the Columbia and Snake rivers to the Port of Lewiston and
that he was ready to "pledge our support and cooperation to enhance the
development of this important new business opportunity."

While not as effusive as Otter's letter, the delegation extended "our
thanks to ExxonMobil and Imperial Oil for their interest in utilizing the
Port of Lewiston. Please accept this letter as the congressional
delegation's intent to work with ExxonMobil, Imperial Oil and the Port of
Lewiston to develop this shipping route."

Nowhere in either letter was there any mention of the people living along
U.S. Highway 12 who might be affected by this project - or how their
elected representatives would insist upon looking after their interests.

------------

JEERS: Bob Kustra

Not only did the the Boise State president yank his school's mighty
football team out of its longtime intrastate rivalry with the University
of Idaho Vandals, he besmirched the good name of UI fans in the process.

Torqued about a column in the UI Argonaut headlined "Who do we hate?"
BSU's president blew his stack.

"This is a great example of why my wife and I no longer travel to Moscow
games. It's a culture that is nasty, inebriated and civilly doesn't give
our fans the respect that any fan should expect when visiting an away
team," Kustra told the Idaho Statesman. "For me, this is not about
football. For me, this is a cultural issue. It's about fans having to
learn how to treat other fans and universities. What bothers me more than
anything else, is that the fans are not about denigrating our athletic
program. ... What bothers me personally is the denigration of our academic
programming. That's what I simply can't tolerate."

Kustra could have settled things with a trip to the last UI-BSU game at
Moscow or even issued a simple mea culpa.

------------

CHEERS: Mike Ferguson

If anyone deserves a nod this year for dedicated public service, it is
Ferguson, Idaho's now-retired chief economist. It was his job to tell
governors - from Democrats John Evans and Cecil Andrus to Republicans Phil
Batt, Dirk Kempthorne and C. L. (Butch) Otter - how much tax money Idaho's
economy would generate.

His job was never easy. Ferguson was supposed to anticipate how the
economy would perform during the next 18 months. Nor was it smooth. With
the state budget approaching $3 billion, even being 99 percent right means
being $30 million wrong.

But Gov. Otter's team politicized the process. They disregarded Ferguson's
forecasts and low-balled the estimates. Then they justified their actions
by transforming the economist into a scapegoat.

Since Ferguson's retirement last fall, his revenue forecasts have proven
correct. The state has begun to see a modest uptick in tax revenues.

------------

JEERS: Judy Schurke

The director of the Washington Department of Labor and Industries, Schurke
is responsible for one of the most blatant shell games of the campaign
cycle.

Each August and September, DLE outlines how it anticipates workers'
compensation insurance premiums to increase.

This year, it waited until November.

It waited until her agency's monopoly over workers' compensation insurance
was safely preserved.

It waited until Washington voters rejected, by 59 percent, a ballot
measure that would have forced DLE to compete with private insurance
carriers.

That's how it works in most states, including Idaho. Washington is among
only four states with a monopoly.

Schurke says workers' compensation rates will rise 12 percent. By some
measures, that will cost the state's economy about $191 million statewide.

------------

CHEERS: Idaho State Tax Commission employees

Nine staff members of the Idaho State Tax Commission - retired and still
working at the agency - have put their reputations on the line to publicly
accuse their bosses, the political appointees on the tax commission, of
cutting sweetheart deals with big corporations. The confidential deals
have the corporations paying pennies on the dollar, the auditors say.

They include:

 Douglas Thornton of Lewiston, who spent 27 years with the commission
before retiring.

 Stan Howland, the first auditor to go public. He retired in 2008 after
bringing his allegations to the Legislature.

 Paul Chugg, an auditor at the commission.

 Joe Schwartz, who managed the tax commission's Coeur d'Alene office.

 Gary Mattox, an auditor who worked on sales tax cases.

 Robert Chatterton, an auditor who retired in 2006.

 Barbara Nichols, who currently manages a staff of 12 responsible for the
audits of multistate corporations.

 Steve Fields, an income tax auditor who retired last year.

 Terry Harvey, who continues to work as an auditor.

If this issue gets resolved in 2011, you can thank these people for the
stress they endured in 2010. - M.T.

---------------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown




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