[Vision2020] Say What?

[keely emerinemix]

Gresham Bouma's concern for public education is indeed touching.  But I have to wonder about a couple of things, especially given his desire to strip Idaho's schools of federal funding.  His letter makes me wonder about other things as well.

"Rejected" Buck Knives?   "Rejected" SEL?  Details, please, Mr. Bouma.  Businesspeople I've spoken to say those opportunities weren't seriously explored by Buck and SEL in Moscow; charges that these two businesses were chased out of town by hemp-wearing, granola-munching, yoga-practicing old hippies is a tired campaign ploy that some on the GOP keep flinging about, hoping it'll stick to the bumpers of our Priuses and Subarus and Saabs.  

It doesn't.

As for James Toyota, please explain to me how a business hugging the westernmost boundary of the state can expand further west without going into the bordering state?  James Toyota was yards away from the state line.  They wanted to expand.  Where are their options?  

Moscow has four basic points of entry -- we call them North, South, East, and West.  Again, moving west meant either displacing Applebees and the Appaloosas (to stay in Idaho), or crossing the state line, given that equally west-end property north and south of them is University of Idaho-owned.  That leaves east, north, and south.  I'm going to assume that the owners of James Toyota, from whom I bought my car, don't see the value in locating north of Moscow; I doubt very much that properly zoned land is available north of town, and the Steakhouse Hill traffic doesn't justify an automobile dealership even if there were.  South of town might have been a good choice, but that leads to and from Lewiston, just a half-hour away, which has a robust automobile-dealer market with a successful Toyota franchise.  That wouldn't, to me, seem to have been a wise choice for James Toyota to pursue.  East of town has, of course, an enormous stretch of land that could have been made available -- but I don't think I have to point out that the population density, income demographic, and traffic flow would make that a phenomenally bad location for an automobile dealership.   

So let's blame the liberals, the elites, and those who hate freedom.  It's easier than exploring why Moscow has many successful businesses that have been birthed here or have chosen to locate here as they've expanded.  After he carelessly blames liberals for a stagnant local economy, Bouma can drive through the new, thriving subdivisions north and east of downtown Moscow, and then cruise through the Alturas Business Park.  If he gets sick, he can enjoy the recently expanded Gritman Hospital campus, the new physical therapy clinics, the two dialysis centers, and a brand-new, enormous, Moscow Family Medicine QuickCare facility, as well as the new day-surgery center, on previously developed land north of Wal-Mart.  He can catch a movie by summer's end at the new Moscow Village Centre Theatres in Eastside Marketplace, and enjoy a buffalo urger, pad thai, martini, gourmet mac-and-cheese, "slow-food" or other meal at one of Moscow's new or newly-remodeled restaurants.  (I hear there's even a wonderful French place in town . . . but I wonder why Sonic Drive-In pulled out?  I heard they were interested in buying some triangular-shaped plot just next to Gritman, off Jackson west of town, but the owner wouldn't sell).  

True, that's all harder than a breezy letter to the editor, but it can't be any more difficult than devising a hybrid of Calvinist-Reformed dominion theology and laissez-fair market policy and calling it a campaign strategy.  Still, I wish Bouma would at least try.

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com




> Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:18:00 -0700
> From: thansen at moscow.com
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: [Vision2020] Say What?
> 
> "A related threat to the University of Idaho and some of our local schools
> is the liberal elitist anti-business attitude of some in Moscow. This
> unfriendly attitude that rejected SEL, Buck Knives, James Toyota, Walmart
> and LCF Enterprises is costing more than we can quantify and is ultimately
> anti-education."
> 
> - Gresham Bouma, candidate for State Senator of Idaho's 6th Congressional
> District. (June 19, 2010)
> 
> "Letters to the Editor" section of the June 19/20, 2010 edition of the
> Moscow-Pullman Daily News
> http://www.dnews.com/story/opinion/52805/
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Seeya at Farmers Market, Moscow.
> 
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
> 
> "We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college
> students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."
> 
> - Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)
> 
> 
> 
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